Autumn has found its way to Johto once again, leaving golden showers of leaves and silver showers of rain in its wake. Gold is staring out the window of the daycare on Route 34 at the pokémon playing in the foliage when Silver shuffles into the living room, carrying two steaming mugs on a tray. He hands Gold one of them and sets the tray on the couch table.
"Funny how both of our grandparents own a daycare, isn't it?" Gold says, blowing on the tea before taking a sip.
"We have more in common than I thought," Silver agrees.
After a moment of quiet, Gold says, "I got mail from Crys."
Silver grins. "The new uniforms?"
"They're even uglier than the original ones." Gold shakes his head and snorts. "Which is kind of a feat of its own, granted."
Silver tries to picture that. "Don't show me the photos," he decides. "Reality is always worse than what imagination could ever come up with."
"Very wise."
Another moment passes while they enjoy their tea in silence.
"We should go visit her sometime," Silver says.
Gold snorts again. "She'd just yell at us for disturbing her during work."
"Isn't that the point?" Silver asks playfully.
He's a lot more comfortable joking these days. Gold can't claim he doesn't like that.
He laughs and puts his mug back on the tray. "Only if you want a bullet hole in your stomach."
Rolling his eyes, Silver settles against the backrest of the sofa. "Father would have been proud of her," he says. "She's a way better mafia boss than I ever would have been."
"Is this the part where you angst about how Daddy didn't love you enough?" Gold says, earning him a kick in the shin.
"Hilarious," Silver says bitchily. "You should do comedy."
"What do you want me to say? Your dad was fucked up. I have no idea what he would've thought of her, though I agree, she is way better at it than you ever were."
Silver flicks his ear, one of the tricks he's picked up from the girl in question, unfortunately. "You can't comfort people for shit," he says. "And I didn't even want you to do that. It's just… I need to talk about it all sometimes. Don't you?"
Gold shrugs noncommittally. He isn't used to solving his problems verbally yet. Sometimes it annoys him a little that Silver has gotten so much better at it already.
Surprisingly, Silver smiles. (He's become a lot more comfortable doing that, too.) "You're still a dick, but I'm glad you're here now, with me," he says and kisses the frown from Gold's face.
Gold doesn't disagree.
Notes: I should probably be ashamed that despite the length of the fic and the ludicrous amount of time I spent not writing it, the actual story takes place within the span of like three days and sort of ends up relatively exactly where it started. But I'm just so glad to be done. All my love to everyone who's stuck around in spite of my massive fail! 3 3 3