"Everything's wrecked, everything is wrecked
Smashed up, destroyed, smashed up and destroyed"
"I Broke My Own Rule" from Book by They Might Be Giants
Max held Cori tight, close. Far too close, but he couldn't bring himself to separate even an inch. "I'm not—I'm not ready yet," he whispered.
Cori looked into his eyes with a soft, eager smile. "You are," they said. "We've been getting closer and closer for so long, it's time we took the plunge." Any and all rebuttals died in his throat. Cori's grip tightened before Max could do the same and held him up. "Ready?" Desperation clouded Max's eyes as he looked up to theirs. He shook his head and mouthed a silent no, but knew he couldn't stop it anymore.
As hard as he closed his eyes, he couldn't block the warm feeling of water on his tail as Cori lowered him into the pond. It flicked between his legs to get away, splashing more all over both of them. He squeezed his paws on Cori's arms as tight as he possibly could to make sure they didn't let go. "Pika!" he screamed when the water grazed the bottoms of his paws.
"It's okay," Cori said. "I've got ya." If he opened his eyes, Max could've seen Cori's comforting smile, but instead he only saw the water blacking out his vision. The water at his ankles made it hard to breathe, and he feared gasping in a lungful of it. Air surrounded him, but he couldn't bring himself to breathe any of it. He shivered just to see if he could when the water got up to his legs. His lungs began to burn, so breath forced itself in and out in gasps and pants, far too erratic to control.
He sucked in his belly once it hit the water as if that could help, and then it went all the way under. Then his chest. He felt Cori's grip shift slightly and sunk his claws into their scales. "H-hey! Ow!" Cori shouted. "It's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay please let g—ease up!" Max relaxed his grip just enough to keep his claws outside their scales. "Grab the ledge," Cori panted out. Max shook his head. "C'mon, you got this! You—," Max started digging his claws in again, "are making great progress already so go ahead and keep holding onto me."
"Ka chu," Max thanked. He tried not to slip in front of Cori, but fear made that impossible every time. Even if they already knew, it still embarrassed him. He peaked one eye open and saw the same warm, comforting expression Cori always wore during these "lessons" (if a bit pained from the intermittent stabbings). Some rough, gritty object grazed his hindpaw, and he knew for certain his life had ended. However, he somehow kept breathing and realized he'd brushed up against the wall. "Chu, chu, pi ka chu!" he begged, shaking his head.
"That's enough?" Cori asked, and Max threw his head into nods. They started pulling him out, but Max needed out that instant, not the next. He felt for the edge of the rocks with his hindpaws and immediately threw himself at Cori when he felt it. They rolled across the grass together for a good few seconds before slowing to a stop. "Ow," Cori grumbled.
"Pichu," Max said. He gasped in breath now that he was far enough away that he didn't have to worry about the pond water leaping into his lungs. One arm squeezed tighter around Cori to reach his scarf on the other side. Good thing he had his arms around their neck, because he definitely couldn't reach all the way around their torso. Cori ran their paws along his back while returning the hug. Their scales warmed up his damp fur and slowed the shivers rattling through Max.
Max tempered his hyperventilating to almost normal breathing, though didn't bring it close to relaxed. "There, there," Cori cooed. "I've got ya. It's all right." Max nodded his head and squeezed tighter until they coughed. "Breathe-can't."
Panic struck him like lightning, so Max leapt up and away while looking at Cori with wide eyes to make sure they were okay. "Pichu! Ka pi kapi?" he asked. A hurricane of guilt and shame twisted inside him.
Cori hopped up and asked, "What's wrong?"
Max looked for marks on their neck. "Ch… chu," he squeaked. He started to back away. They looked fine, but he couldn't get past his guilt.
"It's all right," Cori said. They slowly raised their arms in surrender. "I don't think you'll hurt me." The past week made these exchanges practically routine. "It's okay. I'm okay." The assurances did little for Max's concerns, as usual, but his retreat slowed. "Let me go get the towel to dry you…," they looked down at themself, "us off." Max nodded, and they went back to the pond to grab it.
Max wrapped his arms around himself and glanced at his bag. Grab it, run, never look back. Easy, but a chill held him back. They'd grown closer every single day, and it filled Max with dread. He used to genuinely consider running, want to, but now he could barely want to want to run. Lessons or not, he had no excuse. Their smile, laugh, mannerisms always dissolved his defenses. It felt like a matter of time before they saw past his facade.
A towel draped around his back, and his paws yanked it tight. The chill of autumn had descended upon him while he lost himself in thought. Cori fluffed the towel against his fur, pressing it, rubbing it to squeeze all the water they could into the towel. "Are we fighting today, or did that leave you too rattled?" Cori asked.
Max kept his eyes trained on the ground, but briefly glanced up to let them know he'd heard the question. "P-pi—," he started to say before stifling himself. He tried a few more times to talk, but couldn't manage it.
Cori squeezed him through the towel and said, "It's all right. No rush." Max nodded, putting both ends of the towel in one paw so he could grab his scarf with the other. Even after the water soaked it, he still clutched the towel tight. "You picked a bad season to learn to swim," Cori said with a chuckle. "This pond'll freeze over by the time you're willing to get in."
"Pi," Max mumbled with a vacant nod. The water chilled him more than the winter wind even this far away. When he felt a warmth begin kneading his chest, though, he shook the fog out of his head. He took a few deep breaths in and out to shove his lingering terror away and paint over it with a vague smile. Fine, he needed to act fine. It was just water, and it was far away now. "Ka, ah, Hmm. How. Are. Doing? How're you doing?"
"All right," Cori sighed, but Max felt a damp ache of sorrow in the back of his throat. Sad, they were definitely sad (Max'd gotten pretty good at interpreting the emotions Dark Matter ate by now), but they didn't seem to want to talk about it. For the best, of course. Max didn't need to pry into their business, so he decided to let it slide, instead thinking how he'd fill his belly since his food ran out the day before.
"You don't seem all right," Max said. The warm chill on the back of his neck perked up at that, probably because Dark Matter had made him say it.
That wasn't me, and you know it.
"I don't?" Cori asked, then visibly deflated. "Well, yeah. I'm not the best, but it's not a big deal."
Perfect. An out. Max could leave it there. "If it's big enough of a deal to bother you, then it's a big enough deal to care about," he said.
Wow, maybe you are that uncaring monster you pretend to be.
"Okay, sure," Cori said, interrupting Max's scorching rage at Dark Matter's sarcasm. "That doesn't make it your problem." They turned away from him a bit, crossing their arms. Max couldn't even pretend to call this an out anymore; you'd struggle to find a more cut and dry example of a cry for help.
"All right, all right," Max said, waving his arms in surrender. "I'm not gonna force it. If you don't wanna talk about it, we don't have to. It's up to you. Don't open up if you don't want to, but don't assume my emotional well-being is an excuse for you to ignore yours." That came out with much more bite than he expected.
Silence hung between them and built tension in Max's chest. He looked over to them with a bit of panicked fear that he pissed them off. Instead, he saw a bit of surprise and a swirl of comfort. They opened their mouth a few times to try and start talking, until ultimately deciding on an all encompassing, "Oh. Okay."
The two eyed each other for a while, neither particularly interested in breaking the silence, but both growing tired of its oppressive hold. "So?" Max finally asked. Not much, but it technically counted as taking his turn in conversation, so the ball returned to Cori.
They brought their gaze down from Max to their claws. "Sorry," they mumbled. "Just not used to people caring."
That had to be wrong. Max twisted one eye closed and raised a brow. "Don't you have friends?" he asked, and instantly regretted the question when Cori rolled their eyes with a huff.
"I thought," they grumbled. "All they ever do if I'm down is tell me it'll get better. As if that solves anything now! No one ever asks what's wrong. Even if they do, the best they give is advice about how I could've been better." Max nodded, squeezing his eye against a throbbing headache of their rage. "I don't know." A damp ache slowly took over the headache as Cori's clenched fists dissolved into each other. "It's usually my fault, anyway."
"Who cares if it is?" Max spat, and Cori shot him a look of suspicion. Max met their gaze with incredulity. "How is it relevant?" He shrugged off the towel. "You're upset and talking about how you feel. What a bunch of dicks." Max grabbed the towel to rub at what damp spots on his fur he could find, but then realized he'd already soaked every inch of the towel.
That ache in the back of his throat started to get worse, and he looked over to see a mural of frustration and sorrow painted across Cori's face. He gasped in air to try and suck back whatever words made this worse, but that didn't accomplish much. "It's really exhausting," Cori said.
Max let out a quiet sigh of relief. They weren't mad at him, at least. "Yeah, I bet," he said. His reservations lost more of their hold over him as he told himself he crossed the point of no return.
"Sometimes, I wonder why I bother talking to a few of them at all," they said. They let out a sigh and rested their arms on their legs. They looked up at Max nodding along, letting it air out. "Other times, I don't get why they deal with me." Max tensed his jaw. "Maybe it'd be better if I just stopped. Stopped trying to impress them. Stop embarrassing myself attempting to get better at the games that they like but I'll never be good at. I could give up on that stuff, on them and move on. Maybe strike out on my own." A chilled knife cut Max deep in his chest, "You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself," and ripped itself out through his stomach.
All the warmth in his blood froze over in the silent air. He reached for his scarf, but felt empty fabric in its place. If only for a moment, it became an empty collection of strands and fibers woven together, all of its significance dead as the air in his lungs. "You could," he said. He squeezed the fabric tighter to force its soul to return. "You could give up on trying to win, improve, get better, whatever. And it'll probably feel good, too."
The scarf fell out of his paw as he turned it over to look at the bandages he'd wrapped around long-healed wounds. "It'll be a breath of fresh air," Max said. "You'll remember how easy it was to let go, and you'll have one less thing to worry about." He ran claws along the bandages. "They'll still ask a few times if you want to come with them, and each time it'll get easier to say no until they stop asking."
He opened his paws up to look at his palms. "You won't tell them you care. You'll tell yourself that they stopped asking because they stopped caring, and you'll believe it." His claws squeezed into his paws. "All your new time to yourself will be great. So great, you won't feel that gnawing hole inside. It'll get easier to let go of every little idea, desire, want, need that might bring the potential of fear. Every time you do, it'll get so much easier that you won't notice the ache in the back of your throat when they tell you about their fun memories without you."
His claws popped through the layers of his bandages one at a time as he squeezed them harder. "They'll have so much fun on their own that you'll figure they're better off without you. Tell yourself it's what you want because that aching void you've cultivated inside is telling you it's joy now. Then, it's just a matter of how much you want them to notice."
Max dropped his paws to his sides. "If you want, you can just slink away in the night and hope they don't ask, but that won't be enough. Any lingering doubt about if they cared will eat at you, so you have to kill it. You'll lash out at them, tell yourself it's a cry for help, and when they defend themselves, you'll reassure yourself it's proof of their priorities." His voice hitched at every other word as tears built up in his eyes. "You'll say all you want is for them to leave you alone."
A bitter smile pulled at the edge of his cheeks, and he forced out a dry chuckle. "When all you really want is someone to stop you before it's too late." The warmth kneading at his heart told him all he needed to know, so he didn't bother checking in on their mood. "What are you worried about?" He glared over at them. "Doesn't that sound easier than trying?"
A shiver shook Cori's head for them. Max looked down at the grass and went on, "People are assholes. Life is hard." He grabbed a chunk of grass and yanked it out of the ground. "But if you let go of every part that stings," he opened his paw to let the breeze blow away the grass, "you'll have nothing left to hold onto."
Piercing silence suspended them in time. Eons passed by in seconds as the world around faded into white noise, a low hum, and then even more deafening silence. "I'm sorry," Cori choked out through the vacuum around them.
"Why?" Max asked with bite he couldn't hold back. "It's your life to throw away." He glared at them again, tears making it near impossible to make out their blurry, blobby form. "I'd love to tell you how the other option pans out, but I'll never know." He pushed up to his hindpaws and dusted off his fur.
"Wait!" Cori shouted and hopped over to grab his paw. He looked back at them with a sneer that failed to disguise a glimmer of hope. "C-can you stay a bit longer? Just to hang out?"
Max chuckled. "C'mon, don't worry about me. It's not a big deal," he said, but he didn't pull his paw away.
"If it bothers you," they said. "Then it's a big enough deal to care about." Max didn't try to hold back the smile and squeezed their paw back. Against his better judgment, if only for a moment, he decided not to let go.
"I broke my own rule, I broke my own rule
Now there's no rules, no rules, there's no rules anymore"
A smattering of various pokémon filled the store. All their various conversations, cries, sneezes melded together with the background hum of refrigeration. Weaving through them with feigned confidence, Max tried to blend in. His scarf turned a few heads, but he couldn't bring himself to take it off. Some older pokémon looked at him with widened eyes as if to entertain his fantasy, others rolled their eyes and smirked.
He really hated how young he looked. Sure, he didn't know how old he actually was, but he knew he deserved to be treated older. "Maybe I just like purple," he grumbled to himself. At least the distraction helped him forget he needed to act natural, making him instead act natural naturally.
The sweet aroma of the fruits section pulled him out of his thoughts. He swallowed air and held a paw to his empty stomach. Almost there. A quick few grabs, and he'd leave as if his bag was the same weight as when he entered.
He looked around for anyone looking at him, or anyone nearby, then dropped down to all fours. Running like this eluded him, but crawling was easy enough. While it made him look too young, his small stature still had its own advantages. He creeped around as quietly as he could manage with steps so light, even his own ears couldn't make them out. The shelves stood too high for him to see what fruits they held from so low, so he had to rely on his nose.
Bananas smelled the closest, and sure enough a bunch of them greeted his paw when he reached up to grab one. He yanked it down into his bag and skittered to another section. They looked pretty green, too, so it seemed he might have any luck on his side for once. A mix of sour and tang greeted his nose, probably berries. Another snatch and sure enough, the box had a mix of blue and raspberries.
That reminded him he needed more cheri berries, but they probably kept a more vigilant watch on the medicinals. He tucked that thought away for later and scurried over to the apples. Juicy, tart, delicious apples. Perfect to sink his teeth into. Or chop up and simmer over a fire. Or squish into a pulpy juice.
He smacked both cheeks a few times to stop his mouth from watering. It took all his restraint not to chomp down on the first three he could get his paws on. Instead, he tossed two to ten too many in his bag and started walking away when he saw the bright shine of perhaps the best apple Earth could offer.
Perfectly round, shiny, impossibly red with delicious sprinkles of yellow across its skin. Could it even be of Earth? It looked like it was floating (because it was on the edge of a higher shelf), so it had to be divine. His stomach grumbled, and a drop of his own drool dripping onto his paw was gross enough to pull him out of his reverie.
He grimaced and wiped it off onto his fur, trying and failing to convince himself to leave it behind. His paws plodded right underneath it, and he plopped his bag it down beside him even as he told himself to make a run for it. He leaned back and hopped up to the bottom shelf, barely enough room to rest the tips of his toes on. His balance wobbled back and forth until his tail jumped up to counterbalance his stance. From the looks of it, the next level had even less room to stand on, so he'd have to hang down.
Eyes he couldn't see pierced the back of his neck and reminded him he didn't have much time, so he hurried to hop up and grab it. The shelf wobbled against his weight, and his grip faltered for a moment while he squeaked out an involuntary, "Pika!" The shaking slowed as his precious prize rolled further away from the edge. "Chu!" he grumbled.
He yanked himself up and grabbed the apple, but the movement shook the shelf enough to jostle him back down. His weight started yanking on one paw's uneven grip and watched as it slipped further and further. Worse, a shadow crept over him like a predator's before it pounced. He felt two purple hands wrap around him when he started to fall and stiffened in surprise. "Gotcha!" the pokémon behind him declared, sealing his fate.
They plopped him down, and he shrunk away. "Kachu, Pi pi…," he started mumbling and slammed his mouth shut. He looked up in horror at the gengar who caught him, and now he'd admitted to even worse. "L-look, I'm sorry, please don't tell any expedition—," his pleas died when he saw a badge on the gengar's chest. The sparkling gold of a Grand Master. Not even saving the world got him that prestigious a rank. The jig was up. His ears flattened as his tail drooped to the floor. He looked down to the ground. "All right, you caught me."
The gengar giggled at his antics. "Caught? You were hiding?" Gengar asked.
Max nodded. "W-well, before I started climbing, at least," he mumbled.
Gengar's smile grew a bit wider, and his laughing got a bit louder. "Really?" they chuckled. "Buddy, you had your tail up." Max popped his eyes wide before shrinking back down and glancing back at his traitorous tail, which made Gengar start laughing even harder. "You're funny, kid."
That frustrating epithet smoldered with the laughter in his stomach, and he started getting more frustrated than defeated. "Just arrest me," he said.
Gengar stifled his laugh enough to raise a brow at Max. "For what?" he asked.
Guilt squelched Max's building anger, and he looked down to avoid Gengar's gaze. He moved the apple to his elbow so he could his claws against each other while working up the courage to mumble, "Stealing."
While he stopped laughing, glances up confirmed Gengar still had a wide smile. Was it just his face? "What'd you steal?" Gengar asked.
Max glared up at him for a moment before realizing he had an out to take. "N-nothing," Max said with a glance at the apple in his arm that he hoped Gengar didn't notice.
Gengar narrowed his eyes a bit, his smile finally faltering, if only slightly. "Stealing food?" Gengar asked. He left a pregnant pause out to make Max squirm a bit. "You're not from around here, are you?"
The ghost asked the question with unspoken weight Max tried to ignore. "No," Max admitted. "Just arrived in town today."
Gengar looked down with an amused smirk. "I think you know I didn't mean Pokémon Square," he said.
The prying gaze made it impossible for Max to sit still, yet he couldn't help but fixate on even his slightest movements. He knew the question had more depth, but he couldn't quite make it out. There was the obvious way he wasn't from around here, but how could anyone guess at that so quickly? How would a pokémon even know about human society enough to pick up on it? "Well, yeah," Max mumbled. "I'm from the Water Continent." He could barely muster the conviction to say that at all, much less convincingly.
Half of Gengar's body dissolved into the floor, low enough to have his arms level with the ground, and yet he still towered over Max. He reached an expectant hand out to Max. Max looked between it and the apple. So close, the smell filled his head with a deliciously tempting aroma. He held it in both paws with holy reverence. To give it up felt sinful, stealing it even more. Pushing it towards the paw shook both of his paws, as if rubber bands tied them to his chest. His belly grumbled in need right as the apple touched Gengar's hand, and the ghost snatched it up. "Chu," Max whimpered.
Gengar hopped back up out of the ground and looked over its immaculate form in search of any new blemishes or bruises. He closed one eye to pore over it even closer, and Max could only watch as his mouth watered. Gengar rubbed his 'chin' in thought, looking between the fruit and the mouse, and finally tossed it back at Max.
Max leapt up to grab it for fear that any amount of gravity would ruin it, and he looked up at Gengar with one ear raised. "You're awful young to remember a time when you had to pay for food," Gengar snickered. "And I don't think that's different in the Water Continent, either." The memory of his 'shopping' trip with Neb smacked him over the head like a ton of bricks.
The familiar flame of embarrassment started burning at his cheeks. "Kaaa, Pii pika chu—erm," Max bit down on his lip, the slip serving to fluster him more.
It didn't seem to phase Gengar at all, though, who phased down close enough that Max could feel his breath. Before he could ask what the ghost intended to do, Gengar ruffled his head fur with one hand while pushing the apple to Max's mouth with the other. "Calm down, kid," Gengar chuckled. "I ain't gonna eat you." Gengar looked down at him with a suddenly predatory gaze. "Yet."
As much as Max wanted to panic, the petting put a haze of relaxation over his mind that pulled his lips into a dumb smile. A bite of the apple slipped into his mouth, a sprits of heavenly juice squirting around his lips, and he forgot every other sensation he'd ever experienced. His hunger surged over his rational mind, and he felt his consciousness slip as he devoured it in dangerously few bites. Even his stomach tasted its wonderful flavor, a mix of that, Gengar's pets of increasing intensity, and the full feeling had Max going slack in Gengar's hold. "Chaaaa," he murred.
"Well, you're a cute little world saver, ain'tcha?" Gengar giggled.
Max jerked himself up out of the relaxation at that. "K-ka?" he asked. "K-k-www, what makes you say that?" Gengar's pets threatened to calm him back down, but he tried his best to stay alert.
Gengar stared him down with narrow eyes. "This," he said, grabbing Max's scarf.
Max quickly yanked it away to hold it possessively close. It definitely wouldn't help the situation, but he couldn't help himself. "W-what? The Kecleon bros mass produce these things," he said with the conviction of a lapsed Catholic. On its own, a scarf could never amount to enough evidence for the claim Gengar hinged at, but Max's pitiful responses might.
Gengar snickered at that. "Oh right, how could I forget," he said. He rubbed Max's head one more time and floated back up to full height. "Don't worry about the ones in your bag, either." That worked? Max looked up and saw a knowing gaze, but Gengar wasn't pressing him on it. "If you need a place to stay, head a bit west from here. Look for the ugliest house you've ever seen and ask whoever's at the front desk for a place."
Max pulled his bag back onto his shoulder, looking up at Gengar suspiciously. "I can't really afford a place," he mumbled.
"Good thing it's free, then," Gengar said.
"What?" Max balked. A bit of hope rose in his chest. Last night, he'd shivered more than slept, and he expected tonight would be worse. He still tried to squash his desperation, though. "I-I can't just take food and a place to stay for nothing," he argued.
"Sure you can!" Gengar laughed. Max almost interrupted when Gengar went on to say, "But, if it's really tearing you up inside, the mon at Pelipper's are always bugging me to recruit new rescuers. And you look like you know your way around a dungeon."
Max ground his teeth against each other. "Is that some kind of joke?" he spat. Not making a deal out of his slips didn't give him the right to deride him for it.
"Not that," Gengar said. "Scarf." All his anger sizzled into embarrassment, and Max looked up apologetically. "You game, then?"
Max rolled the idea around in his head. It strayed a bit close to community membership, but taking the food and place to sleep without paying anyone back made his stomach churn. A transaction at least felt a bit less personal. He nodded his head, and opened his mouth to agree when Gengar grabbed him by the tail. "Hey!" he shouted. "Let me go!"
Gengar kept dragging him along. "Didn't you ask me to arrest you?" he asked. Max leered up at him as best he could, but he had to almost run backwards to keep the yanking as painless as possible. A few of the patrons looked over at the commotion, and even the few that took interest made his cheeks feel redder than ever before.
"What happens when, happens when the, when the freedom
Freedom you want, you want to have"
Paperwork made it hard for Max to believe that life inside of society had any advantages to life outside of it. "Species?" Pelipper asked.
Max looked up at her with resigned disbelief. "Pikachu," he said.
Pelipper noted that down. "Gender?"
A self-conscious shake of his tail hid the end behind his head. "Choose not to specify," Max said.
Pelipper nodded. "Age?"
Max dug deep into his memory. They had looked about the same age, right? How old was his partner? Was lying okay? Is it lying if he didn't know the answer? "Eleven?" Pokémon ages took a bit of getting used to.
"What are you asking her for?" Gengar giggled.
Max sneered at the ghost, but Pelipper ignored the interaction entirely. "Almost done," she assured. She flipped one page over, and her eyes glazed over as she looked at the next. An all encompassing emptiness of boredom tore at the back of Max's neck. He was too short to see the top of the counter, so he had to wait for her to start reading. "Are you now, or have you ever been, feral, feral sensitive, dungeon sick, or chronically disoriented by a dungeon?"
Max froze. His mouth opened, but he couldn't force anything out. Pelipper looked down at him, and he finally forced out a, "What?" He couldn't lie with Gengar right there. What kind of sick joke was this? Gengar had to know about this requirement if he recruited for them.
Pelipper let out a resigned sigh, looked back to the paper, and started reading out, "Common symptoms include losing speech, gaps in memory, aggressive reactions to other pokémon, impulsive behavior, non-chronological—"
"He hasn't," Gengar interrupted, tossing a little wink at Max when he looked up in shock. "I doubt the kid's ever even heard of a dungeon. He just begged me to show him how to be a little hero." A swirl of gratitude and anger muzzled Max, clenching his teeth together.
If Pelipper noticed the reaction, she did not care. "Well, we're supposed to run some tests just in case," she said. "But I trust ya, Jake." She signed a few lines at the bottom of the paper and smiled down at Max. "Just don't go feral, all right? Sendin' rescue teams for rescues is a lot more paperwork than I wanna do."
Max forced out a chuckle. "Y-yeah, haha," he said. His nerves raised all the fur on his back while she finished up the papers. Gengar's hand combed them down. Max wanted to shake it off, but he needed the comfort.
Pelipper scooped all the papers into one wing, rapped them against the counter, stapled them, and dropped them into the desk. Max jumped a little at the perceived sorcery, then realized the desk probably had a slot on top. Gengar pet him a bit more thoroughly.
"Congratulations," Pelipper said. She tossed a brown little object at Max, and he hurried to catch the wooden badge. "You're officially a provisional rescuer. Have Jake explain the specifics."
There was that name again. "Jake?" Max asked, but Pelipper was already flying away when he looked up.
Gengar pat his head. "Odd name for a pokémon, yeah?" he said. Max looked up to him with a flash of realization. "Could say the same thing about you."
"To have comes at, comes at a cost, a cost you can't
You can't afford to pay"
"And they don't even thank me!" Max complained at the air. He yanked a too green banana out of his bag and started angrily peeling it. "Favorite oran berry? What does that even mean?!" He chomped down on the banana, and it tasted all right for not being even close to ripe. The fruit quickly turned to mush thanks to his rage-filled chewing.
Despicable, truly unforgivable.
"I know!" he shouted with a full mouth, hoping the night air forgave his poor manners. "I know they don't want to risk someone inexperienced making a small problem worse, but at that point they should go after it themselves." His head shook, and he looked around for a waste bin. He tossed the peel at the first one he saw and held his paws behind his neck to rest his head on as he walked.
A freezing gust of the approaching night blasted through his fur and forced him to bring his paws down, trying to rub warmth into his arms. The sun had barely begun to set, and a chill stronger than last night's had already descended. He doubted he could get enough kindling for a fire before night.
Jake offered you a place to sleep, remember?
"Oh, right," Max mumbled. "Thanks." A swirl of uncertainty joined the twilight's chill. He had no idea what to make of that gengar. Jake was absolutely an asshole, but at least he was helpful. Of course, the content of his character wasn't Max's main concern with him. He wrapped his paw around his scarf. "Do you think he really knows? Or is he just messing with me?" The hair on the back of his neck stood on end while Dark Matter thought.
Well, it's hard to say how much is him being strange, and how much is in response to your own strangeness. You have quite a few odd habits that make you stand out. You're quite a weirdo compared to other pokémon.
It sounded like an insult, but the tone ranged from neutral to supportive. "I guess, yeah," Max mumbled. As he went over the encounter, he furrowed his brow in frustration. "Why didn't you remind me about food stores?" The fur on the back of his neck trembled like a perversion of a chuckle.
Why didn't you let me throw the Earth into the sun?
Max tried to hold onto his anger, but he couldn't and ended up giggling. Every passing day made it harder to hold on to unease. The excuse that it was because Dark Matter was eating up more of his negative feelings comforted him, but didn't remotely convince him. He knew the real reason but couldn't admit it. If he faced the truth, he didn't know if he could let himself stay any longer.
You were an incredible help to Cori, today.
Maybe Dark Matter simply had no experience getting the memo. "I guess," Max said with a shrug. "Just some advice. No biggy." That skin crawling shake of a chuckle rattled the back of his neck again.
As if you said any of that for them.
"What?" Max grumbled, gritting his teeth. "They were upset!" A chill separate from the evening's temperature shook through him. "I just wanted to help them feel better."
Indeed you did.
A frosted sigh left his lungs, but then he realized he'd fallen into a trap.
You care about them quite a lot.
The denial was already on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't bring himself to say the empty lie. He slumped over and squeezed his arms tighter. "All right, fine," he grumbled. "I like them. There, I said it."
And they care about you.
"W-well," Max mumbled. "Maybe."
Definitely.
His cheeks charged themselves in fury. "I don't know that," he growled.
Don't you?
"What's your point?!" Max shouted. Sparks bounced down his cheeks while his tail flicked back and forth in frustration. All the conflict in his mind he'd buried away up to this point crawled back up to the surface, dripping out of his eyes. His tears brought a slight warmth before the wind froze his wet fur colder than before. Dark Matter didn't say a word, leaving him alone with his thoughts for far too long.
Max wanted to leave it buried. Leave his worries and regrets deep down so he didn't have to think about them, didn't have to face them. If he looked at it honestly, sat with the swirling emotions cutting through his heart, he knew he'd have to face the truth of it all.
A guilt he'd used every ounce of his strength to suppress tore into his stomach again. Every relationship he'd sabotaged, friend he'd scorned, gift he'd rejected flooded his mind in phantom visions. An ocean of tears obscured his sight, but memories blinded him, anyway. A tree greeted the fur on his back as he fell against it. Rubbing the tears away only soaked his paws and brought another wave to wet his eyes again.
Don't torture yourself for making a few… dozen mistakes.
The strength to dismiss the words had long since left him. Neb stood at the door of his room again until a flash fire burned the memory away.
You helped Cori because you're kind, yes, but that's not all. You're hurting as well, and it helps to hurt with others.
A bag of beads made it into his paws. Max squeezed them tight, but gently, making sure they didn't break. "They didn't deserve it," he sobbed.
You didn't deserve isolation.
Max had essays prepared to argue that he did, but they all dissolved in his mind as his tears washed them away. Every defense he strapped on sloughed off his armor until he sat alone, naked and vulnerable in the freshly made night.
You don't have it anymore, either.
"Hello? Are you all right?" a voice called out. Dark Matter hadn't meant that figuratively, it seemed. Max jerked up to see an ampharos mere yards away. He'd missed his chance to hide his tears, so he didn't bother. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be the pikachu Jake sent, would you?" Max couldn't spare the energy to be surprised and nodded instead.
Ampharos took a few cautious steps closer and lowered a paw for him to take. "Here, let's warm you up, then I'll send you on your way." Max felt his paw take hers before he could object, and his other discretely dabbed at his tears while she walked him across the street. A monster of a blue zangoose head stood tall against the night, and Max wondered how he missed it up to this point. Jake's description of the ugliest house he'd ever seen definitely held true.
A blanket of warmth draped over Max as Ampharos pushed the door open, brought him inside, and sat him on a cushioned love-seat. He whimpered when she let go of his paw, but she returned quick after with a key attached to a block. "Here," she said, and he reached up to grab it. His eyes traced over it with uncertainty, then Ampharos took a seat next to him.
She wrapped an arm around him; he didn't push her away. "I know you don't know me, so I won't push anything," she said. "But I'll do what I can to help, all right?" More tears came to wet his eyes as he looked up to her. Every fear, worry, and sorrow sat on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't say a single one. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
A whimper forced its way out instead. Instead of fighting to hide it, hiding in his scarf, running from his pain, he let it all spill out and began sobbing at full strength again. He buried his crying eyes in a stranger's wool and let her warmth fill his ice-cold bones. All the pain spilled out in wordless sobs, and he finally let them with a new certainty that he didn't have to face his pain alone.
(A/N: Hello. As I predicted, this chapter's about a week late. Things aren't looking super great, but I'll still be writing this. There're only one or two chapters of this story left, so I think I'll be able to get the rest out on schedule. Without going into too much detail, I'm not sure if I'll have a place to live in a month. You might've been able to tell I channeled that in the end of this chapter, lol. It's not a certainty, and at worst it's probably temporary, but if chapters suddenly stop, well. That's why. If you're the praying type, I could use some.)