He's fourteen when a fight with her mother leads to her stumbling away and out the door while the older woman paces in front of the house, screaming into the cool April night for her daughter's return. He hears her, the crude lashes of crazy, mean, bitch that make his stomach turn, and darts out the door to find Leaf, barefoot and red-faced, puffing out breaths that fog around her face and frizz her hair in the cold as she squints for glass in the dark.
She blindly clutches the arm he offers, a hand slung behind his back as he supports her weight with a steady grip. Her reading glasses are askew on the bridge of her nose, one of the hinges twisted and splintered like a snapped toothpick. There are spots of blood on her palms and around her feet, and her lips resolutely clamp shut. He sees gouges that smear crimson across her cheeks as she wipes her tears, and his head aches with fury.
Leading her inside with a deceptively calm hand, he sits her down at the dining room table and locks the door tight. Samuel pads in from the hallway, and the quiet sadness on his face, the understanding of something bigger than the usual claim of accidental injury, looms heavy over the room. Leaf's shoulders tighten, preparing to bear a weight Green could never imagine carrying, and as though he can sense her discomfort, the professor retrieves the medical kit from the cabinet, sets it on the table beside her, and disappears back into the hallway. Her posture relaxes, but she still sits stiff and wary.
"Growlithe," she breathes. "I — left Growlithe." The self-loathing in her voice doesn't come as a surprise so much as yet another sorrow. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." She berates herself under her breath.
It isn't necessarily anything new that she values the Pokémon's well-being so highly, especially under the circumstance that the little fire-type was with her even before her parents' divorce (and, more importantly, that he had been a surprise from her father when she turned three). But it worries Green, this insistence that the fire beast's safety comes before her own.
"Stupid," she repeats quietly. Her fists are tight; when he pries them apart he can see it, the splash of weeping crescents carved into her palms.
Green rests a glass of water in her hand and curls her fingers around it, watching her lift the drink to her lips and take a slow, deliberate sip. She chokes on her too-tight throat and he rubs her back, but she shivers at the contact and he pulls away, shaking.
"Don't you think this is going too far?" he says.
Her hands rest in her lap, tugging at the edge of her worn pajamas. They're small — tight at the shoulders, short at the ankles. A shiver wracks her back. "I don't —" Her tone wavers and dips, drops like she's divulging a secret. "I don't feel like too far exists anymore."
"Leaf," he breathes. "You — you don't have to do this anymore. Gramps, Daisy, Mrs. Ketchum, they're… they know, and they hate it. They want to help. You know that, don't you?"
She takes in a deep breath and winces as the slashes on her hands split, seams widening to stain her shirt cherry. "They're not my family, Green." The glass stands idle on the table, her fingers twisting in the cotton of her clothing. They're long and pale and remind Green of dead spider's legs, tangled and knobby. "I know just what they'll say," she murmurs after another moment. "Her parents. I'm a wreck. I need to clean up my attitude. I'd better fix myself up before I ruin it all again."
"There's nothing to fix about you," he says sharply. "If there were more people like you in this world…"
She stares resolutely at her lap, and jolts when he runs his thumb over her knuckles.
"Well. Let's just say it's hardly deserving of you as it is."
Leaf smiles, but it's twisted and sad, and her shine, her brilliance, seems faded. "Are you sure about that?" Her voice wavers. "Because I'm not sure it wants me at all."
a/n happy new year's, have an update