Can you blame be for falling in love with my best friend?
I mean, we were together all the time, him, Skyra, and me. We were the original team. We're all that's left now. And that's why I can't exactly go up to Skyra as say "GTFO", because I like her. I like that punk Taillow, with her brave eyes. Well, I guess it's Swellow now.
But I fucking love him. I love him so much, that when we are together, doing team battles or just random shit, I feel like I can release this huge breath I've been holding in.
But he doesn't feel the same way.
I remember, I started to fall for him for the stupidest reason ever, which was that he reminded me of grass.
...Grass.
Like, what the actual fuck.
But then again, grass makes sense. See, when I was a little Mudkip, I was always shut up in the lab. The Professor had me for fifteen years and I think I went outside less than twenty times in those fifteen years. And I always used to think, damn, grass is really pretty.
It came to represent everything that I yearned for in the outside world. Then, when I met him with Lexa, he was always taking care of me and putting up with my shit.
He still puts up with my shit.
I think there was this one time where I woke up and I was hugging him really tightly. I mean, Wrap-style, squeezing him so hard his breath barely came trickling out of his lungs. And he was awake, too. But he didn't say anything. He just let me hug him and patted my back in that "go to sleep" pattern that seems so universal.
He smelled like Peacha Berries.
And now that he's evolved... goddamn, did you see him, with his skinny jeans and cardigan- you know he's taller than me now?!
This is stupid.
What? Yes, okay, fine. I cried. Big deal. People cry all the time. But I didn't exactly expect them to kiss as soon as they evolved. Or maybe I did, and I was just denying it. Anyway, I didn't want to make our friendship awkward by telling him I liked him.
Is it sad that the only way I could touch him was by punching him?
Is it pitiful that the one time I tried to kiss him, I skimmed his cheek with my mouth and almost got knocked out with an Absorb so anger-fueled that Lexa had to pull him off and stop him from strangling me?
This is stupid.
Just wanted to let you know.
Yes, I know I'm talking to a tree stump, but who the fuck am I supposed to talk to? Lexa?
Well... not a bad idea. But I'm sure she has her own problems to deal with. She talks in her sleep a lot. Most of the time, it's the cutest freaking thing ever when she's like, "More cheese on this animal, please," or "Fear me, tiny peeps." I try so hard not to laugh and wake her up.
But sometimes, it's pretty sad stuff. She says "Mommy!" a lot and "Daddy?" as a question. I guess it sucks to know you have a dad, and not have him grow up with you. Briar's the same. His dad got captured by a trainer with a PAL and I'm pretty sure that's why Briar's so frown-y all the time.
There are also times where she says things that make me so fucking mad, like, "Stop!" or "It hurts!" or "Ash, ow, it's sharp!"
The worst part is that she thinks whatever he did to her is completely okay. She's that brainwashed and I can't convince her otherwise. To her, Ash is the god that saved her from being alone and kept her safe.
I roll over and face Lexa. In the hard moonlight, I can see her face change with the emotions that flash through her head. As the clouds scuttle across the sky, she briefly opens her eyes and I can see the royal blue shining through. In this light, I can't see the golden circles, radiating outwards like ripples in a pond. I wonder what she is thinking as her eyes focus on me. Is she still dreaming?
"Torrent?" she whispers and half-raises her body off her sleeping bag. "You okay?"
I hesitate a moment before answering.
"Nah." I might as well tell her. I'm not afraid of her loving me less.
She sleepily gets out of her sleeping bag and flops next to me, nuzzling into my hair.
"Mmmmm..." she hums, "What's wrong?"
Am I sure I want to tell her?
Will it change anything between us?
I take the risk.
"I'm in love with Briar."
Her body snaps to attention when she registers what I say.
"That's... oh, I see."
Yeah. Nothing will change.
This is what I like about her. Her voice is comforting, but she doesn't pity me. She knows how pity can twist people into thinking the world owes them something.
"Thank you for not telling people I cried." When she chuckles, I kiss her forehead solidly with a loud smacking sound. "For real, though. Don't wanna ruin my masculine image."
Beyond her, I can see Briar and Skyra sleeping together, their hands touching and I fucking swear to Arceus, I can hear my-
Oh, did you think I was going to say "heart breaking"? If you actually have gotten your "heart broken", you know where the feeling comes from. It's not your heart ripping, it's your soul reshaping, attempting to redefine itself to accept the reality of the situation. To accept that the person you would die for is now... dead. Off-limits. Makes sense?
My vision of them is blocked when her face looms closer to mine, eyes stretched wide and eyebrows raised. Her tongue darts out to lick my nose.
"What are you doing?"
"Making funny faces," she responds. She flings her arm outward, making an explosion sound-effect, and drums her heels onto the ground. "You know what I noticed?" she asks, jumping on me. I grunt with the impact and lie on my back, circling her bicep with my hand, measuring her muscle mass as I do every day. I'm guessing that all the sparring is helping, because she's getting stronger. She doesn't get tired as much and she can do one pull up now. And let me tell you, one is a lot better than hanging there, kicking.
"What did you notice?"
"I don't feel like Lana and Cobalt left us. I feel like they're with us."
"Like ghosts?" It would be a problem if they were ghosts. Revengeful spirits are bad, bad news.
"Well, no..." she re-adjusts herself so that she's cuddled up to my side again, lightly pulling at my jacket. "Every time the sun rises, I can feel them pulling at me, telling me to wake up. Every time I breathe, I can feel them talking with each other; Lana's still timid and Cobalt's still confident. It's like they're walking next to us and everywhere at the same time, having fun with us, crying with us."
"It makes sense. They're part of the earth again. And all things are recycled."
"Yeah. That's why when Skyra asked me if it was okay to be this happy while they were gone, I said it was alright. Because, they're not actually, really, truly gone."
The wind is strong tonight and I can smell the rain front that will move in soon. The grass around us ripples like a miniature ocean. I feel better. Really.
Briar asked me about Lana and Cobalt, too, before he evolved. I guess he wasn't feeling too happy about them dying. Well, duh. It was peculiar, how uneasy he was about it, how much it differed from his usual apathy for trivial things.
"Briar asked me about them, before he evolved."
"What did you say to him?"
"I told him that we'll all come back. That we'll disperse and then be born again and we won't ever really lose each other. And we should try our best to be strong for those behind us and those that will come into our lives."
I feel the vibrations of her throat when she says something, but interrupt her to turn her head towards me.
"Sorry, didn't catch that. One more time?"
"When I meet you, in that moment, I'm no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past," she recited. "But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all. This isn't my first time here. This isn't my last time here. These aren't the last words I'll share. But just in case, I'm trying my hardest to get it right this time around."
Her words sway in the air in front of me, as soft as silt, as light as sunset. I can almost imagine my future rearranging itself to fit those words in. And I can feel my perspective shifting to receive them.
"Sounds familiar," I manage to say.
"Steven texted them to me."
"You guys text a lot?"
"He gives me poetry to read and I tell him what I think about it."
"Do you like him? As in, fancy him."
"Fancy," she giggles. Then, she's silent. But she's not deciding, she's debating. "I don't know. I don't know what it means to fancy someone. I don't know that kind of love and what it entails."
I nod.
"Torrent?" she asks after some time has passed.
"Yeah?"
"I don't know about Steven. I don't know if I ever will. But I know that I love you. And no matter what, I will always love you. You guys... you guys are the first friends I ever made, so I'm sorry if I haven't been treating you guys the way friends should. But thank you for putting up with me and loving me. You guys are a blessing."
Arceus, definitely too cute.
I want to look away because I know my face is burning up, but I press my cheek against hers and inhale.
Exhale.
She settles back to sleep.
Inhale.
Exhale.
She smells like, well, a girl. Some kind of flower and soap and saltwater.
Inhale.
Exhale.
"You are my blessing, too," I whisper.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I start to slide into my dreams when a column of flame shoots straight into the sky.
I'm on my feet already, but everybody else seems to still be asleep. How am I the only one that sees - goddamn heavy sleepers.
Again, the night lights up in shades of red and orange, this time, further away in the grass.
We haven't caught our first Piece in this route, so I scoop up Lexa's bag and head towards the light.
Where's my reinforcement?
Hah, please.
Do you think anything that shoots flames has a chance against me?
Everything is charred around my feet and ash floats thickly in the air. It doesn't bother me, though. But the flames are moving away quickly, so I run to catch up.
"Guess who has resistance to fire, bitch?" I shout when I see a figure through the smoke.
I flinch when the Piece screams; I can feel them rattling in my chest. It sounds like it's scared.
"Are you hurt? Let me-" When I step closer, it screams again, so I stop.
It sounds hurt.
The best way to calm it would be to catch it and send it to a Piece Center.
"Come on! Let me help you!" I put a PEN in my pocket and toss the bag into a safe corner behind a huge boulder.
Huh, right on time because a wall of flame engulfs me and I'm pushed back by the pressure of it, not the heat. It stops and then I'm slammed with it again.
I taste fear in the fire. I taste pain.
"I'll help you!"
I push forward, ignoring the fire licking at my face. It's a slow, step-by-step process, but eventually, I lock a hand around its wrist and tap its hand with a PEN.
So apparently it was a Numel.
He and Lexa are talking together at the other end of the Piece Center. I think the rest of the team went up to the room.
He's interesting. He has curly, straw-colored hair which looks weird with his skin, which is almost as tanned as Skyra's. Because he's just a lower evolution, he's wearing a green t-shirt and yellow-orange shorts, but he has nice, broad shoulders. Very nice broad shoulders.
He glances at me, holding his upper arm with one fidgeting hand and then looks away, blushing furiously when Lexa hugs him. Tentatively, he circles his arms around her shoulders.
"You have strange eyes," I say when they walk over. And they are strange, flickering garnet to tangerine to saffron. "Are you okay? You were screaming like it hurt."
"Y-yeah, I'm fine," he stammers. "My name is Aiden. What's yours?"
"Torrent. Let's see your emblem."
"Emblem?" Lexa asks, confused. "Do you mean weapon?"
I poke her in the ribs.
"I thought you were texting Brendan questions."
"I'm trying," she whined, "but I don't know everything."
"An emblem is a reflection of a Piece's personality and it's where all the experience points go into. It can also double as weapons, or it doesn't have to. For example, my guns are my emblem and my weapons. Eris had an anklet, which was her emblem, but she didn't have a physical weapon. Skyra and Briar exchanged emblems when they just evolved, but not weapons. Get it?"
"I'd r-rather not show..." Aiden interrupts.
And of course, I'm instantly suspicious.
Would you not be?
Emblems are supposed to be reflections of a Piece's personality, so what does he want to hide about himself?
"Show," I order.
Slowly, he turns around and lifts his shirt up. The muscles of his back shift until a simple tattoo of a sea turtle appears.
I take a step back. It's involuntary.
On his back, the turtle moves in a fluid, floating motion, drifting from his shoulder blade to the small of his back.
I snatch Lexa's arm and push her behind me, setting my guns to Water Gun.
Do you know what tattoos mean?
Self-loathing.
Usually, tattoos are animals that are in a similar element. If you're fire, you'll have a phoenix fluttering around. Poison, a cobra.
But a tattoo in a conflicting type?
That. That means a suicide attempt.
"Why did you bother to join when you have no will to live?" I snarl. His hands are shaking as he slowly lowers his shirt.
"I-I'm... I'm d-different now. I-"
"-or maybe you thought I could finish you off? Because I have a type advantage? Is that why you joined?"
"Torrent!" Lexa's voice cracks like a whip against my eardrums. "That's enough."
Are you kidding me?
We fight every day to survive, to see our friends one more time, but this Numel has the audacity to want to die?
I won't let her through, even though she's pushing against my arms. Instead, Aiden turns to me and takes a step forward.
"I'm different now." His voice is firm. "You won't regret taking me."
I'm about to say something insulting when Lexa puts a hand on my face, palming it like a starfish stretched on a rock. Immediately, all the fight goes out of me and I woof a big breath.
"Is this how you stop people from fighting?" I ask her, muffled by her palm.
"I'm not good at it," she frowns, "But don't fight. Aiden will prove himself. And he's a fire-type, which we need. And he's also warm and I'm cold at night sometimes."
Ha! That would be why she would want him on the team. I can't help but to grin.
But I don't trust him. And while we're walking up the stairs into our room, I keep Lexa to one side of me. The suicidal can do dangerous things.
Briar and Skyra are already sleeping, curled up next to each other.
I don't want to cry.
I don't want to cry.
I don't want to cry.
I don't want to cry.
Lexa falls asleep immediately between us. She's facing Aiden, who looks like he doesn't know what to do. So I take his wrist and pull it around her waist so that it curves down her back.
He says something, so I take his jaw and angle it towards me so that I can read his lips.
"I'm deaf. One more time."
"Thank you for saving me today."
"Eh. How did you even hurt yourself? Was it a territory battle?"
"No, I... I jumped off a cliff."
Of course.
"But I'm different now!" he insists when he sees the look on my face.
"Yeah, different, my ass. What changed between then and now, huh, punk?"
"You saved me," he says quietly. "You fought for my life when even I had given up. I wanted to burn you to the ground for interfering but you pushed through the flames like nothing and rescued me. I owe you a debt."
And his eyes are so fucking serious and steady that I believe him.
"I still don't trust you for shit. You better keep yourself under control. If you so much as singe any of our team, I will drown you."
"Yes, sir," he smiles.