loooong chapter... ish

Dun dun dun

Adumbrate means something along the lines of foreshadowing

Its like

Adum-dum-dum! …brate.

Sorry the vocab nerd in me is too strong

And this has nothing to do with the chapter

I think

911. polymath: one who knows a great deal about several different fields

Pikachu grumbled from underneath a pile of blankets, and then crawled out and headbutted Green in the back of his knees. Green, who had been hugging a cocooned Red while standing by the enormous blanket pile, fell face first into the blankets, landing on top of Red. Pikachu snorted before walking away.

Green, meanwhile, was lying face down on the blankets, nursing his head. His skull had hit something solid and rectangular – and as suspected, there was of a stack of books and textbooks under a blanket.

He marveled at the tremendous stack – Red had not been idling around – and curiously stared at textbooks of astronomy and high level physics. Although Green had been quite the accomplished polymath, his studies had focused more around life sciences, and he was quite impressed.

912. incense: to make angry; to enrage

Green temporarily forgot that he was lying on top of Red, but when he did, he jumped up as if he'd been shocked, and then went back to fussing. Red's eyelids were shut, but they fluttered shakily, and his entire body was soaked with sweat. Green swept the whole bundle of Red and blankets up, trudged on over to the bath, and had Arcanine and Gyarados fill up the tub with hot water.

Red blinked a couple times. He'd gotten sick a couple days ago, and had been resting as per the health textbook's advice. He made sure to keep away from his pokemon to avoid spreading the virus, but that also caused him to be isolated as well. Well, being cooped inside and too nauseous to really move, he hadn't really eaten much and had been aching and his nose was running and his mouth was dry and he was alone.

And then he'd blinked once and Green was hugging him and oh, it was warm.

And then he'd kind of passed out. When he woke up again, he could feel a little breeze between his naked legs, and if he kept his eyes open for a second he could see Green's face on fire. The brunet's eyes were focused firmly on Red's feet, so he didn't notice Red opening and closing his eyes. Green had one arm firmly wrapped around Red's waist while another focused on taking off clothes (the floor was too cold to lay Red down), and it was a pretty awkward and inefficient method. At last, the brunet finished stripping him and then gently put him into the tub. Red's skin jolted a bit at the warm temperature, before slowly accustoming to the heat. He kept his eyes closed and his toes curled as the warmth coursed through his body.

Green walked back over with a bar of soap, and rolling up his sleeves and kneeling on the ground outside of the tub, he started working on massaging and cleaning Red's back. Red made an "o" shaped with his mouth and sighed softly as he felt knots in his shoulders being rubbed, and his tense shoulders sagging. Green tried to recall thoughts of Daisy and trying to learn how to massage, trying furiously to forget the fact he'd just stripped Red.

Green eventually moved around to the side of the tub to start working on cleaning Red's arms, when he glanced up and saw Red watching him passively. Green's face, which had finally cooled to a faint pink, burst into fire again.

Incensed, he threw the soap bar at Red's chest. "Oh my Arceus if you're awake do it yourself!"

913. mortal: subject to death; causing death

Green ran away in mortal embarrassment to the main cave and then squatted down and hugged his knees while rocking back and forth on his toes. He's seen plenty of male genitalia, whether it be in anatomy class or nude art or gigantic sculptures or while studying human biology – ok, and he'd even seen Red's when they were kids. Green had no clue why he was so embarrassed, but he just was and Umbreon skipped away from Espeon long enough to rub her cheek against Green's forehead comfortingly.

914. eloquent: articulate; convincing and effective in speech

After a good five minutes of absolutely no sound, Green cautiously walked around the corner to check on Red. The bar of soap was outside of the tub, and Red appeared to have fallen asleep yet again.

Green ditched his unwieldy, long sleeved jacket and hauled Red upright yet again. Keeping his eyes focused on Red's legs, he toweled the pale boy dry, and then pulled out his own change of clothes from his travelling backpack. Everything was a little too big, but clean clothes were better than sweaty ones.

Green rolled Red up (like a burrito) in the blankets and then carried him back to his nest and plopped him down. He carefully observed Red's now steadier breathing, and then sighed. Red was not yet horribly thin, but definitely not eating enough. Time for food.

He dug out a metal pot and filled it with a couple scoops of rice and a lot of water, and carefully propped it above the fire with a metal spider contraption. He gazed emptily at the fire for a minute, before snapping out of his daze and wandering back to check on Red.

Thankfully, Red seemed a whole lot warmer – he was no longer shivering, and his lips were slightly parted as steady streams of air entered and exited his mouth. Green stared at Red's closed eyes, before reaching over to brush aside a lock of hair, and to grab an astronomy textbook.

Green had never gotten to studying astronomy – biology, chemistry, anatomy, physics, environmental science, medicine, yes, but astronomy, no. The textbook margins were packed with neatly written notes and annotations. Red's handwriting.

Green squinted and examined the writing even more closely. Red's vocabulary and writing style was truly proficient – analysis points were eloquently phrased and jotted down. Way back in primary school, Green and Red had been top students, but Green marveled at the fact that Red had actually bothered to read the plethora of textbooks his mom had sent over time.

915. predilection: a special liking for something; a preference

Green walked back over the fire with the textbook, and set it aside to take a quick glance at the rice gruel (there weren't many ingredients to spice it up – he hoped Red had developed a special predilection for dull, healthy foods). Thinking about it, Red had only gotten sick one other time – people didn't catch colds from being cold (although that could lead to immune system enervation or hypothermia); they had to contract the colds from other people.

916. macabre: suggesting the horror of death

Green filled a bowl with the bland rice gruel, and then propped Red up so he was sitting upright, leaning against the wall. Green shakily guided the spoon to Red's parted lips, and he struggled to keep his mind out of the gutter as Red swallowed the spoonful easily. Red's eyelids opened, and calm, red eyes met flustered, green ones.

Mesmerized, Green stared and stared before his spoon clattered in his bowl and he remembered his purpose. Red did not show any signs of growing arms (he was still all cocooned up), so Green had to continue spoon feeding. He was acutely aware of Red's eyes focused on his, and struggled to keep calm.

Gold and Silver and Leaf crashed into the cave just then – literally, Leaf shoved the boys in and Gold tripped on a rock. Silver landed on him, exacerbating whatever bruises were forming. Gold dramatically cried out, claiming "death by tripping," although his scrapes were nowhere near that macabre.

917. tourniquet: a device, usually an encircling bandage, used to cut off the flow of blood

Green and Red were shielded by the shadows and the clothes hanging from the clothesline in front of the blanket-nest. Leaf called out.

"Hello? … Red? Green?"

Green glanced wistfully at Red, wishing they had had more time alone. Well, even snowball fights couldn't last a whole lot longer than half an hour. Their eyes locked briefly, and Green sighed before putting his bowl aside and walking to the cave entrance.

"Hey." He furrowed his eyebrows as he overheard Gold speculating about how to tie a tourniquet around his scraped elbow.

918. itinerary: a route or proposed route for a journey

"Where's Red?" Leaf plopped down by the fire, prodding it and stirring it into life. Silver rolled off of Gold, and joined Leaf by the fire. Gold remained face down on the ground.

"He's… sick."

Gold sat up rapidly. "Wait what?"

Green rolled his eyes. "He's running a fever."

Gold rolled onto his back. "Whaaat? Then the whole itinerary of come up the mountain and have a dramatic battle and then come down is… not happening?"

919. brawn: muscles; strength

As Green nodded, he noticed Gold's attention suddenly shift away. Green followed Gold's line of sight, and then groaned as he saw Red slowly walking over, followed by Pikachu. The idiot really didn't know when to decline a challenge, did he? Just when Green was starting to believe Red had more impressive brains than brawn…

Gold's eyes widened and he stuttered. "W-whoa, dude, you look half dead, are you ok?" Green had to agree that compared to the healthily tan boy Red had been advertised as years before, the current Red was thin and frighteningly pale.

Red nodded. He motioned at Pikachu, who bounded out, and came back half a minute later followed by Red's extremely worried team. Only Pikachu and Espeon had been allowed in the cave, for Red was fairly knowledgeable about administering medicine to smaller Pokemon; he'd sent the others to stay with Moltres, but apparently they spent the days hovering outside the cavern.

920. idiom: a style or manner of expression peculiar to an individual or group; an expression that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its words

Red walked over to his team, and they worriedly rubbed his cheeks and his hair with claws and leathery wings and vines. After silently reassuring them that he was indeed ok, Red turned to face Gold, backed by his team. No fancy idioms or metaphors were needed to describe Red's intent – Gold had come up to challenge Red, and his challenge had been accepted.