(A/N: Sorry, I forgot a content warning in the last chapter. I've fixed it now, and I'll try to be more vigilant going forward. Also, couldn't find a way to share the chapter art, so idk. Find the fic on ao3 if you wanna see it lol.)


"Our motivations out to sea
And our ideas they die so quickly"
—"All the Medicated Geniuses" from The New Romance by Pretty Girls Make Graves

A universe flew by Max as he floated in emptiness. He sat still, flying at impossible speeds with only the memory of a body to keep him company. When his motion stopped all at once, he felt lucky that he only had a soul at the moment.

Familiar, bright, blinding colors pulsed and shifted all around him, but he didn't have the energy to look around. He felt tired, like he needed to go back to sleep. Somehow, he got the feeling that wherever he was didn't want him there, either. Some being looked down on him from he didn't know where, but he felt their gaze in the same way he felt his soul flying through an empty universe.

The heavens took a breath and held it. An empty, dense silence took over his surroundings. Despite not feeling the need to breathe for a while, it felt suffocating. Finally, it let out the breath.

"Sorry."

A pink fluff appeared and shot him off, back to his body.

"We all lie so well
We all lie so well"

For once, Max didn't wake up in a start, nor did a gradual increase of agony pull him into consciousness. He even felt like he could roll over and go back to sleep if he really wanted. Considering it very seriously, he decided to at the very least peak one eye open to see what greeted him if he woke up.

Neb, Cori, and Eleos had strewn themselves around a room he thought was his for a moment. The walls, however, only had nice, pretty decorations to make it feel homey (instead of the more useful and hideous notes he coated his own in). Definitely best, he decided, to sleep a bit longer.

Unfortunately, despite him being off to the side, Cori happened to take a glance his way. "Oh, good morning!" Cori said.

"Ugh," Max groaned. "Can't I wake up alone for once?" Despite the harsh words, he had a smile spread across his face. If he had to wake up to other people, he was glad these were the people he woke up to.

"You can talk!" Cori cheered while bouncing. Max ignored them for a moment while he tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. When the importance hit him, though, he let out a sigh of relief.

"That's good," Neb said. She'd approached all the way from the other side of the room while he'd rubbed his eyes. "Maybe if you stop nearly dying, we can trust you to sleep alone." She gave him a wavering smile, but he grimaced and looked to Eleos.

"I thought you said you wouldn't tell her?" Max grumbled. A dense silence surrounded him again.

Eleos suddenly deflated. "I did not," it said. "But you slept through a day, and she got worried. I withheld the details."

All the frustration he'd sent to Eleos shot back to him tenfold. "What details?" Neb scolded. Max threw his paws over his eyes. Why. Why did he have to be like this? He started to sputter out a lie when Neb barked, "Can we skip the part where you fail to lie to me? It doesn't really work for you."

Max slumped over, looking up with his ears pressed against the side of his head. Looking up to someone bigger scolding down at him felt eerily familiar to the void of lost memories from being human. He couldn't say it aloud looking at her eyes, so he crumpled further to hide his face and mumbled, "I went into a Dungeon," as quietly as he could into his fur.

Neb sighed, and he thought he heard her shake her head. She tread intentionally, almost stealthily towards him, making him feel like easy prey. "Did you say 'Dungeon?' It's hard to hear you over all that fur in your mouth."

Max surprised himself by letting out a whimper. Why was this affecting him so much? It's not like he was actually a kid. Yet, this all felt so terrifyingly familiar. He steeled himself for a moment and bravely forced a timid nod while curling into a tighter ball.

Yeah. That'd show her.

Again, Neb sighed. "Did you just wander into one, or—," she cut herself off when he started shaking his head. "On purpose?" He nodded. "Thunderwave Cave?" Nod. "How deep did you get? First floor?" Shake. "Second?" Shake. She paused for a moment, bringing a paw up to rub the bridge of her snout. "You at least stopped at the fifth floor, right?" Max went still, which was all the answer she really needed.

She took in a deep breath, turned to Eleos and groaned, "What happened to watching him?"

"I did," Eleos said. "I wouldn't let him enter a Dungeon in that state alone."

"You weren't supposed to—ugh," Neb groaned.

With the ire focused at someone else for a moment, Max felt some strength return to him and managed to uncurl a bit. "Look, I know—" he started, but then Neb looked back at him. "—p-pipi, pichu," he whimpered out in apology. Just a hint of his self-respect woke up, though, and he shook himself free. "It—I found… a thing."

"And you risked your mind for it," Neb said.

"I mean, he did fix his speech at least," Cori said. When Neb looked back at them, though, they went so still Max wondered if their heart was even still beating.

"W-wait!" Max forced out. "Please, listen!"

Neb glared back at him with fire in her eyes. "Listen?" she shouted. "Listen? What, did you have a good reason to risk your life?" Her eyes pinned him to the ground. A moment of silence dared Max to answer, but he couldn't coax out a single word. "Have you thought about who has to catch you when you throw yourself away?" Another bout of silence stood in defiance of the answers swimming through his head, none of which he could even think of saying. "About who has to sit and watch you, care for you, wondering if you'll even wake—"

Her eyes finally registered Max's, the pool of guilt and terror with just enough edge to cut through her own rage. A streak already formed down the left of Max's cheek with several more tears at the ready to follow. He'd brought his tail around front for some semblance of defense like usual, but instead of holding it out in front, he had it on his chest so he could wrap his arms around it.

Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. After a moment, her frown creased back into a forced chuckle. "Sweet mew, you know how to make me worry." It wasn't remotely convincing—if anything, it was another kind of terrifying—, but it was enough for a quarter of Max's lung capacity to return. "What 'thing' did you find?"

After taking a moment to make sure she'd actually stopped, Max let himself relax a bit. He dragged his paw to the back of his head and tried to think (though his other remained to firmly hug his tail). "There, so, when I started, I felt, sort of," he said, stumbling over about every other word. "Connected?" Neb gave him a blank stare. "C'mon! I just woke up," he whined.

"I did not," Eleos interjected. "Searching through his memories, it seemed the awareness of his surroundings grew to the point that he could sense the world around him with unusually acute detail." A mix of frustration and relief washed over Max. On one paw, he didn't need to explain this, and Eleos was doing a pretty good job, but those were his memories, dammit! It shouldn't just snoop like that!

"As we entered the Dungeon," Eleos continued, giving Max a glance of deference, "it seems the Dungeon connected with him. He could see the precise path to the next floor from the entrance of another."

"Whoah…," Cori gasped.

For a moment, they waited for Eleos to continue, but it stared blankly back. Finally, Neb broke the silence and asked, "Was that all?"

Eleos hummed, looking up and to the side, tapping his chin in thought before popping his eyes open and throwing a paw up in overacted realization. "I do remember him feeling some strange emotion when I held his paw in mine," it said. Horror froze Max; he barely managed to blink. Did it really say that? "Some mix of anxiety and joy. Somewhat like excitement, but it seemed as if it caused some of his blood to flow—"

Max broke out of his fear and slammed a paw over its mouth. "Scared—scared!" he shouted out. He looked up and around with a forced chuckle-smile. "It—y'know. Wasn't sure—and still felt a bit—well, I was already feeling a bit weird!" Cori laughed, which separated Max's soul from his body again, but he tried to recover enough to force his own laugh out. "Haha y-yeah! Eleos still struggles with figuring emotions, haha."

Neb buried her face in her paws to suppress the worst of her laughs. "Arceus, you embarrass yourself worse than anyone else could dream of," she chuckled. "Don't you know when to stop?"

"No!" Max shot back. "Or—it's not—I'm just clearing…." He looked at the room. The only person not laughing at him was Eleos. It looked emotionless. Again. Max saw himself brutalizing the psuedo-mander again and leapt back off it with timid whimpers of regret. "M-Mandy, Eleos…." He stared down at his forepaws with all three charmander floating in his mind. "S-sorry, I'm so sorry." The missing name left a gaping cavern in his heart that he filled with guilt.

"Max?" Cori asked, shaking the chu's shoulder. Max jerked away from the scaled paw, but relaxed when he looked to see whose it was. He took in a breath to speak, but hadn't found anything to say before he started to exhale. "You okay?" Cori didn't touch him this time, but they did move to meet Max's gaze.

Neb came closer as Max nodded, Eleos following a bit behind. "It's all right," Neb softly said. "You didn't do anything. You didn't hurt anyone." Max looked up at her, uncertain, and saw her look at Cori and bob her head towards him.

Cori took the order well and went in to hug Max, hopping right between his arms and wrapping their own around him. "You're okay," they cooed.

The squeeze of the embrace undid the tension in Max's chest and juiced out a sigh of relief, so he started squeezing back. Guilt sodden memories rushed to his mind, so he squeezed tighter with every new one that came. At some point, even his tail had wrapped around Cori, adding that little bit more to the strangle-hold he had on his friend.

"M-Max," they wheezed. Max gasped and flinched away, but Cori's hug didn't let him get far. Even despite that, they still maintained the embrace. He looked over to the totodile's smiling head, then up to Eleos, and finally Neb… huh, he was the shortest by a lot.

"Are you able to speak?" Eleos asked.

Taking a deep breath, Max calmed himself down and tried to focus on talking. He was calm. He was in control. "I don't know," he mumbled, then sighed in relief. "Yeah. I can."

Cori squeezed him tighter and bounced up in celebration. "Great!" they cheered. "You're really better! Congrats!"

The extreme excitement made Max chuckle, but his chuckles hit a wall when he looked back over to Eleos. "Are you okay?" he whimpered.

Eleos looked up to Neb, got a nod, then stepped forward. It took Max's right paw in its own and pressed it against its chest, holding up his arm while its other paw went to Max's chest. "You have done me no harm, friend," it said. "I am fine." Max's stabilizing breath made him realize it'd grown unstable. Then, it slowly leaned forward and whispered, "I apologize for accessing your memories and sharing them without permission."

Once he remembered what had started this whole debacle, Max's face flushed. "N-no, uh, yeah. D-don't, y'know, again," he squeaked. He kept his gaze trained firmly away from Eleos's eyes.

Neb shared a silent glance with Cori, the former asking, "Down bad?"

"Down terribly," Cori agreed with a nod.

"No! Shut it!" Max barked at her, brushing off Eleos's touch.

"Ah, it would seem that your energy has returned to you," Eleos said. "You can scream at us without losing consciousness once more." Max buried his face in his paws while the other two burst out laughing. "Excuse me, did I miss a joke?"

Max looked pleadingly up at Eleos and got only a curious expression in response. He shook his head and crumpled against the wall.

If only he'd stayed asleep.

"If misery loves company
Then it seems to swim so much more forcibly
In the song of other people's failures"

Neb ran a brush down the back of Max's fur with a gentle paw while the other tended to the little tangles that got caught in his fur. "Better, a lot better," she said. "The back's always a pain to get to, though." The praise didn't help Max feel any better. She'd seemed preoccupied since he woke up, and even though she put on a sense of calm, Max felt off around her. So, when she specified she wanted to take him to the bathhouse alone, he could only imagine what horrible fate awaited him."I learned to use my psychic for it, but I've seen others use their tails."

Max nodded with a meaningless hum of vague approval turned squeak when Neb suddenly stopped her brushing. She tugged him around to face her and asked, "Okay, what's wrong?"

Max attempted to scoot away, but the edge of a bath thwarted his escape. "I-I'm just—" luckily, it could be his salvation, too, "—water." He curled his tail around to his chest and hugged it, remembering the drowning Cori saved him from those weeks ago. His tail instinctively went to tuck itself under his scarf, but he'd taken it off for the bath. "And…." One paw went to where the scarf wasn't, trying in vain to feel its comforting fabric.

"Oh really?" Neb mused, taking half a step closer to him. "Is that why you scooted closer to the water when I turned you around?" His tail went stiff, which he failed to mask with his arms. Neb rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "Max, please."

He didn't let himself even glance up to her, sitting in silent thought to make sure he didn't say yet another stupid thing. With a deep breath of his own, he mumbled, "I feel like I should be asking you what's wrong." He shifted a bit in his seat to glance around and make sure no one else was in there with them.

"Why's that?" Neb asked.

Max looked up at her with a raised brow. "You're upset, c'mon," he said. "I can see it—I can almost smell it." She sat back and tilted her head, confused eyes looking down at him. Obviously, she didn't believe him.

"How so?" she prodded.

"You're tense," Max started, already preparing an answer to disbelief. "Everywhere, but especially your shoulders. You keep having to un-clench your jaw to speak—just did it now—when we were walking over, your tail swiped weirdly fast a bunch, you're sweating even though it's cold—," The more he described, the more he felt around him, "—the water's still moving from when we got out, I can see its waves—I—,"

"Max?" Neb tried to interrupt.

"The clay," Max continued. "It's warmer under you than it is under me, but I don't—" Neb's paw moved for his shoulder, so he hopped up out of the way and smacked it off course with his tail before it landed, then tugged her paw slightly with his own. Once her eyes shot open in shock, his did the same, realizing what he'd done. Without a paw to catch her, she started tumbling forward—right on path to crash into the bath. He bolted between her and the bath to push her back up and stop her forward momentum.

Unfortunately, even if he was far on the chubbier side, she still weighed a good bit more than him. He pushed her back enough to save her, but not without dooming himself. The still waves greeted him before he hit the water. He gasped in all the air he could before the water wrapped its tendrils around his maw.

A scream of terror begged to shoot out of his throat, but he barely managed to keep his mouth closed. Cori had told him the most important part of swimming was to stay calm, but the water around Max's throat strangled out any peace he could've found. He flailed each paw around mindlessly in desperate search for a ledge, a hole, a rock, any sort of purchase he could find, but they bounced and scraped off the clay. His lungs burned for air, begged him to breathe, but he had to fight the impulse to keep it from killing him.

A shock wave hit the water above him and swished over him, holding him with one leg while the other three walked him out of the water. Even after they breached the surface, Max was afraid to take a breath in until all of Neb's paws hit dry land. Max gulped down air so fast it scraped down his throat, and he collapsed to the ground, spreading his arms wide to find some hold to keep himself firmly above the waves.

That didn't last, though, when Neb shoved him quickly, but gently, onto his back and looked down at him while one paw felt his chest rise and fall. "Breathing, good, can you hear me?" she asked. He nodded, coughing up phantom water he never breathed in. To be safe, though, Neb jerked him up and hung his head over her forepaw. He retched a few more times, but only let out air.

"Okay," Neb said. "You're okay." She gently turned him back around and sat him carefully down. Max winced when the back of his left hindpaw hit the ground, though. "What hurts?" It didn't take much investigation before she saw the scrapes on his paws from flailing aimlessly in the water. She nodded in understanding and went over to nose at her bag.

Max wrapped his paws and tail around himself tight while the water dripped off him, his shakes not quite enough to do any meaningful assistance drying him. The chill of the air raked its claws across him and made him shiver, shake as it cut past the warmed bathwater. Right as he was about to crumple in on himself, Neb came back with a towel and a bag he recognized as her first-aid kit.

He'd seen it many, many times before.

Neb went about drying and tending his little wounds, most of which didn't even scrape beyond the surface of his skin, but still, she went thoroughly through, bandaging what she could. "So," she said, glancing narrowed eyes down at him. "What the fuck was that?"

"Pi-pi-," Max started, but quickly muzzled himself.

Moving onto his left forepaw, Neb merely nodded in acknowledgment. "That's all right," she said. "Take your time, calm down. I'll keep my questions simple, all right?" Max nodded. "Good." She nuzzled the top of his head. "Was this feeling my emotions again?" Max shook his head. "Good." She looked up with half a grin. "Thought maybe you snuck Dar—Eleos in."

Neb sighed, and Max shook his head. The espeon looked up in thought for a moment before an idea shone in her eyes. "Oh, is this that connection you were talking about?" she asked. Max nodded with a relieved sigh. Humming in thought, Neb nudged Max over to find a few more scrapes and tended to them. "Does it make you go feral?" Max thought for himself a moment, when she interrupted, "No, you could speak fine until you fell in the water."

A glance at the water that nearly ended him made her chuckle. Max glared at her, face twisted in disgust. "Max, you were standing in that water a few minutes ago," she said, though her smirk soured when he shrank down and looked away. "Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it was that bad."

Max bit his cheek and grumbled, "What, thought I was faking it?" The fact he'd managed to speak properly didn't do enough to counteract his anger. Neb didn't respond, either. He probed a glance her way to see her gazing off, facing the side opposite the pool. Not looking at any sight he could make out. With a moment's focus, he felt a sharp inhale interrupt her breath alongside a shiver between her shoulders.

Concern made him forget his own frustrations and approach. He put a paw on her foreleg and asked, "What's wrong?"

Neb shook herself out of introspection and looked down at him. She started to speak for a moment before shaking her head. "No," she sighed. "I don't guess I can get away with lies anymore than you can, now." Her attempt at an unburdened smile barely went past a neutral expression before she took a breath and gave up on it.

She dropped down to rest her head on her paws with a little shake to fling off some of the excess water still clinging to her fur. Max stepped over to run a paw along her side; her eyes stared off in front of them both. "You get on my nerves," Neb admitted.

That made Max freeze and bring his paw away from her side. "Oh," he mumbled. A sting of pain accompanied a quick recollection of her outburst that morning. "I sorta guessed as much."

Before he could completely crumple in on himself, Neb's tail wrapped around to run down his back. "Not for any reason that's fair," she said, still not glancing back. Max didn't push her tail away, but it didn't soothe him much. "I have some nasty habits of my own." She let her tail droop to the ground and wrapped it around his paws.

"I want the people I care about to be safe," she went on. Max felt her tension fight a shiver down her spine. "I'm very protective of them. Very." She half turned her head to get a quick read on his reaction (half pissed, half hurt, half intrigued) and turned back. "Sometimes, it makes me a bit controlling." An impulse told Max to say she wasn't controlling at all, but he bit it back.

"I start remembering the people I couldn't…," her voice faltered. A lone tear dripped down from her eye. Max brought his paw back up to her side, eliciting a deep breath. "You happen to remind me of them quite a bit." His ears perked up a bit, but before he could ask why, she said, "You're reckless, stubborn, and a bit of an idiot."

Max's expression flattened. "Are you just going to insult me?" he growled.

"That was it," Neb said with a smirk. "And I don't mean them as insults." Her tail lodged itself in his mouth before he could argue. "Aside from the last one." He yanked her tail out of his mouth and tried to claw the fur off his tongue. The same placid expression came back to her, muting his attempt to think of something to yell at her.

Her gaze felt familiar. He'd seen it on her a few times and had felt it himself more times than he could count. She looked off, somewhere out of sight by a long way. In the moment, she was somewhere else. Somewhere she didn't want to be but found herself nonetheless. He recognized it well.

The harshest bite of Max's anger left him in a wash of sympathy. Foregoing one paw, he leaned against her side, lightly nuzzling it. That managed to shake her out of it.

A shake of her own shook through her, and Neb gave a quick glance of thanks back. "I'm sorry," she said, fragile voice on the verge of cracking. "I can't control you. I shouldn't want to. But please." She turned enough to look back, both eyes full of tears. "Please be careful."

As much as he wanted to, Max couldn't give her the simple promise she needed. He looked away and bit his cheek. "I'll try," he offered limply. The memory of that call from the night before brought his free paw to his chest, perhaps an attempt to feel it more closely. "I don't know how to explain it." The pull had led him before. Even if the situation changed completely, the feeling remained the same.

"I can't let someone else do this for me," he said, shaking his head. "I don't know if anyone can." The conversation with Eleos and Cori came back to him. "Maybe I can't, either, but…." The paw at his chest opened up for him to see. He looked at it for a bit before closing it with a shake of his head. "I can't sit back and wait. I just can't." Neb let out a sorrowful sigh that pierced his heart. "I'm sorry."

"I understand," Neb said. She gazed forward, but gave him a meaningful glance. "Believe me, I do." Max watched as she sunk into a place far away once again. "I never told you about the first feral I ever encountered." Max nodded along, rubbing her side to remind her he was still there. "My brother."

Her voice broke, and Max could swear he heard her heart do the same. He prepared himself as best he could, keeping a firm paw by her side. "Get comfy," Neb said, pulling him in with a forepaw. "This'll take a minute." Max nodded and leaned into her, but still kept a paw at her side as best he could for comfort.

"It wasn't long after I evolved," she said. "He was jealous that I did it before he did, even though he hatched earlier in the day than me." A nostalgic chuckle cracked out of her. "Typical sibling stuff." Her ears flicked at the air and shut, as if closing out past shouts. "When he ran off, I felt guilty, like it was my fault. I knew it wasn't, but no matter how much you know something like that, you can't shake the feeling."

Max winced at that, and she nodded her head back at him. "I thought you might understand." Her tail came to curl around him. "After a week, I couldn't stand it. I wasn't going to wait for another search party. I snuck out one night with as much food as I could grab without waking anyone. I didn't intend to stay out for long, but I wanted to make sure I had enough for him.

"He wasn't hard to find." She blew out a raspberry. "Not for me, at least. We had this one Dungeon we'd go into to prove our whatever. Strength, wits, maturity, you know." She twirled a forepaw a few times. "Stupid kid stuff. We didn't go past the first floor, but it wasn't that deep either. Maybe five floors. I knew he wouldn't be too far in."

Her eyes grew even more distant. Even touching, Max felt miles away from her. "And then, I found him." She started moving through each word with surgical precision, as if operating on herself without anesthetic. "Now, I know that anyone stuck in a Dungeon for that long is bound to be feral. Back then, though? That happened to other people. Maybe one person we'd heard of, maybe a campfire story."

She shook her head, flinging a tear to the ground. "His eyes." Her voice shook as much as she did. "They weren't him. I could barely recognize those eyes, but I could tell they recognized me. He took one look at me and… I've never seen anyone so angry." A cold chill made her shiver.

"When I tried to call out to him, he barked back and rushed me. I didn't have a good grasp on my abilities yet, but I wouldn't have been able to use them on him anyway. A light snapped me out of the shock, and I—," her voice broke, and she took a moment to stabilize, "—pushed him away. The light grew brighter, and he evolved."

"Oh," Max mumbled. An eevee evolving at night. "Umbreon."

Neb gave him a quizzical glance. "Yep," she said, then looked back to that spot in the distance. "As you can guess, it didn't go well after that." The air stung with a tension that cut at Max's ears. "I woke up the next morning outside the Dungeon. They found him at the bottom of a cliff." With a deep breath, she pulled herself back to the present moment; Max could feel her soul returning. "All that to say, I understand."

Max raised an ear. He'd half-forgotten what he needed her to understand, and the half he remembered didn't meaningfully relate to the story as far as he could tell. It felt wrong to argue, but he couldn't help feeling a need to plead his case. "I don't get it," he said. "I'm not… I don't go to Dungeons because I'm jealous?"

Neb let out a sigh and shook her head. "I didn't think you did," she said. With a light push away, Max got the memo and shuffled away to let her stand, and she turned to face him. "I understand blaming yourself even though it's not your fault." An arrow to his heart sewed his mouth shut. "And I know you have to do anything you can to make that right." A thousand memories flashed and faded before Max's eyes in the span of a second.

Neb's paw on his shoulder pulled him back. "Please," she begged. "Please, be more careful than I was." Max looked up in time to see a few tears drip off her face. "It's not worth missing your one chance."

A warm streak down his cheek made Max think one of her tears had flung onto him, but a twin on the other cheek clued him in. He reached up for her neck at the same time she leaned down to return the hug. They pressed wet eyes on each other's damp fur while Max tried to figure out what to say. Only one idea came, and even though it felt wrong, he didn't have anything better. "It's not your fault," he whimpered.

Neb squeezed him tighter. "It's not yours, either."

"We all lie so well
We all lie so well"

Max jerked up from a… nap? It hadn't felt long enough to be a full night, but he remembered the evening fairly clearly. Although, it was a bit bright around for daw—"Oh fuck," he groaned. He hopped up to his hindpaws to face the temperamental void of shifting color. It didn't make him feel any safer, but it did make him look down and realize he had his body.

"Hello—,"

"Shit!" Max screamed, rolling away from the sound—that voice. Some part of him knew what to expect from looking at it, yet that shattered at what he actually saw. "Mew?!" A very frustrated, resigned mew at that.

It let out a long sigh. "Fine. I earned that," he said. "I apolog—"

"What the fuck's you—"

"I apo—"

"—r problem, huh!?"

"I—"

"No, I deser—"

"I'm—"

"—ve some goddamned—"

"I'M—"

"—answers!"

"—SORRY!" Mew finally managed to scream over Max. "Arceus! Just as hard to get through to as always, huh?!" Max opened his mouth to yell back when a bubble flicked into the back of his throat. "Give me some time or I swear to Giratina I will send you right the fuck to her." The threat barely managed to cut through Max's blind rage. He looked Mew over with a brow raised, wondering if the cat actually could do that but somehow found enough sense not to test him. "Good."

Mew took a deep sigh of… not relief, but he was a half step less infuriated. "I let my emotions get the better of me our past meeting," he forced through gritted teeth.

Max didn't say, "Oh, really, y'think?" but he did think it at the cat really damn hard in the hopes it could hear.

"I did not realize the full extent of your condition," Mew went on.

A good bit of time passed before Max decided he was in the clear to speak his mind. "Did you just decide to hate me when I was born? What did I even do?" he impatiently pondered.

"I…," Mew mumbled, then looked away. "I didn't like your performance last time and was hoping to get someone else."

"Last time," Max echoed. With some time, he'd managed to cool down just enough to manage basic thought. He'd had plenty of questions from past dreams, and now he had someone to ask. "Is that why you sound so familiar? Were you the one who brought me here?"

A shot of hurt cut through Mew's gaze. "No," he said. So, Mew recognized him, too, but Max figured it wasn't the best time to pursue that question. Considering his track record, it might never be a good idea to ask about their history.

If Mew didn't like his performance last time, Max had a good first guess why. "What was wrong with my 'performance' last time, then?" he asked, crossing his arms. "Did you want me to slaughter Dark Matter instead?" Despite having no power in the situation, he narrowed his eyes. "Don't think it deserved to live?"

Mew blinked, his eyes wide with bewilderment. "It's alive?"

Max's steel will shattered like glass. "I-I thought you knew," he mumbled. Mew stared at him with his jaw hanging open. "After we beat it, I sort of, well." A litany of swears rang in his head while he cursed himself for spilling like this. Yet, despite thinking he should shut it, he couldn't shake the feeling he didn't have to. "It needed somewhere to be, so…." He brought a paw up to scratch the back of his neck. "I told it to hang out in my head."

The floating cat had his face in its paws. "You have got to be kidding," he mumbled.

"Listen," Max said. "After we beat it, it was different." The memory flashed in his mind, but he tried to ignore the knife in his chest at the sight of his partner. "It wasn't mad, it was… confused." He looked up at Mew to plead his friend's case and found the cat watching with rapt attention, though he couldn't gauge if it was good or bad attention.

"I just couldn't," he mumbled. That faint, purple-red speck appeared in his paw again. Its weak, fading life force, or as close to a life force as it had. "I know what it was, I know what it tried to do, but." He brought his paw to his chest, just like he had last time. "It failed. It was helpless. I just—" he remembered Eleos trying to smile for the first time, tearing apart the puppet of a body it was using in the process, "—wanted to give it a second chance."

An ache of sorrow hung in the back of his throat. "Everyone deserves a second chance," he mumbled, trying not to think of his own past. His own mistakes. "Almost everyone, at least." A weight hung over him, forcing his gaze down.

He didn't see Mew float to his level and approach until the cat already had a paw on his shoulder. "What happened when you let it in?" he asked.

"Nothing much," Max said with a shrug. "I mean, it was confused. It took a while to say anything, and even then it just asked why I didn't kill it." He let out an inadvertent sigh. "A lot." A smirk crept onto his face with a chuckle, but he quickly shook it off. "Well, there was the emotions thing."

"The what?" Mew asked.

"Well, it feeds on negative emotions," Max explained. "And, apparently, that meant feeling them, too." He brought his paw to his chest. "Since I was its vessel, that meant I felt them, too." A sampler of the aches, pains, chills, and sorrows winced their way through his memory.

"They hurt?"

Max couldn't help a chuckle. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, they definitely could." Shaking his head, he shrugged it off. "I got used to it, well—"

Goon looked down on him with a shallow, forced smile. "We're a team, right?" he said. A chill of slimy disgust dripped down his throat. Every time Goon looked at him, Max thought he could feel a flood of mucus clogging his throat. Despite the smile, it was impossible not to know what the zangoose really felt.

Disdain.

A chorus of hammers slammed into Max's head at the beat of his heart while another piercing call sang above them. Both paws clutched his head. After a moment, he realized he'd fallen over. Someone caught him. "G-Goon?" he groaned. That didn't sound right.

"Max?!" Mew called—WAY too loud for him to deal with. "What happened?!"

Max forced himself up, ignoring how much it worsened the pain. "Just a memory," he said. Right, he'd been talking to Mew. The eye he managed to keep open looked up at the, according to legend, mother of creation. He had to wonder where he went wrong, but he didn't have to wonder for long. "Sometimes, knowing how other people really feel about you hurts."

A moment of lost focus let Mew's paw come straight for his head. It opened up and pulsed energy into it. Max stumbled away in fear before realizing his headache was gone. He'd fallen into a fighting stance on instinct, though, and quickly tried to get out of it before Mew noticed.

Mew scoffed, letting him know he wasn't fast enough. "You fainted from a memory?" Mew asked. Max nodded and looked away with a light burn in his cheeks.

"Yeah," he said. Scarce flashes of the partner he'd left, the life he'd abandoned made him bite at the inside of his cheek. He nearly drew blood. "I-I forgot a lot." His voice broke, but he tried not to care. Which wasn't easy.

"So," Mew started, mercifully offering him an out. "You just started carrying Dark Matter?" Max nodded. "Alone? You didn't tell anyone else? Talk to anyone else about it?" Finally, the interrogation he expected. He gave a nod about as strong as he could manage to make one.

"It must have been so heavy," Mew whispered in a shockingly soft tone. Max narrowed his eyes and looked at Mew's face. He didn't expect to see regret. "It's no wonder." Max felt his chest get lighter, as if he'd confessed a sin. "You always seemed like you…."

Mew shook his head and hardened his expression. "Mew, you're a stubborn one," he said, forcing out a chuckle.

The particular choice of swear made Max tilt his head. "D-did you just swear to yourself?" he asked, a much more genuine chuckle forcing itself out.

When Mew rolled his eyes, it drew out a few more giggles from the chu. "I'm still getting used to things," Mew grumbled. Max raised an ear in confusion and watched a flash of panic run across Mew's face before quickly getting hidden away.

"New to this?" Max asked.

"Giratina," Mew shot back. "Don't forget." He forced his eyes to narrow and scrunched his mouth into a frown. "I'll send you right," he stabbed a paw into Max's chest, "to her." That should've felt threatening. Max knew that. He half wanted it to, since an alternative reaction seemed dangerous, but he couldn't help it. Instead of cowering in fear, he burst into laughter that not even two paws could hold back.

At the very least he remained standing. He heard Mew take a deep breath and prepared for the smiting by giggling just a little bit less. Instead of that, though, he heard some new chuckles accompanying him.

"Yeah," Mew said. "Yeah, I'm new to this." He shook his head and looked at Max. "It's a lot to get used to."

Max recovered enough from laughing to stand up straight and brought his paw to his chin in thought. Oh right, he had a chin and paws this time. "That why you kept leaving most of me behind before?" he asked.

The wide eyes and panicked freeze told all. "Wh-what? No, I—" Mew tried to argue, but Max was already fighting off knowing snickers. Mew pulled in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Fine, yes." Max looked at him with an ornery grin that made Mew glare when he saw it. After a moment, Mew rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I hate you, y'know that?" he sighed while failing to hold back a smile of his own.

Max felt his stomach drop out from under him for a second. Instead of a mew, he saw his partner do the exact same motion, say the exact same words in the exact same tone. Was it the same voice? His mouth hung open while an ache of recollected sorrow ached in the back of his throat. "Y-ch-chu, chu ka…," he mumbled. His voice cracked. A pool of warmth started filling the bottom of his eyes. He cleared his throat and turned to rub his eyes.

"Max?" Mew asked, reaching out a paw. For a moment, he saw orange scales instead of pink fur.

He'd slapped the paw away without a second thought. "P-pi—er," he said. "Sorry. You reminded me of someone else." Turning away made it at least a bit easier to hide, but no less obvious. "I-I." He shook his head. His eyes cinched shut for fear of what they might see. Though, he wasn't sure if he was afraid he would or wouldn't see his partner.

"I lost someone." The words came out on their own. Max had wanted to keep from making another sound, yet couldn't help himself. "No. Not exactly." Something about the mew made him feel like he needed to open up. Because it was mew, and he was a pokémon, he rationalized.

Max slumped to the ground. His defenses fell around him while his tears fell up front. "My partner," he whimpered. "I—" the screams of their last encounter broke in his head. Did he really have to explain his mindset to say what happened? Could he? "Pushed him away." A clawed paw on his shoulder. "I wanted him to hate me." Pained, worried eyes. "He didn't." Scales slamming into his tail. "I couldn't live with it."

Even after so many times, he felt guilty to be the one crying. He did the wrong, after all. Yet, his sobs only grew. A whine choked out of his throat without his notice. "He deserved better," he sobbed. He brought an arm up to make room for new tears. "I wanted to make room for someone better." The words had barely left his mouth before he could taste the lie.

His lip curled in disgust at himself. "No. I just wanted to be right." Sobs shook him, swaying his head from side to side. "I wanted him to hate me, so I told myself he did, hurt him and ran." Blissful peace. "I tried to get all the rot out of my head, forget all the shitty things I was, and hid in a dungeon." Not even memories to keep him company.

"Then, I woke up." Warm comfort he couldn't feel. "People told me I could be better." Soft encouragement he refused. "I pushed them away." Familiar scars in isolation. "It didn't last." Drowning in a pool of love he didn't want. "But then someone else came." Arms pulling him from the brink of death. "I wanted to die. They made me live." A smiling face. "I tried to get better. I wanted to make things better."

A crumpled envelope. "Then, by the time I realized what I gave up on and tried to fix what I broke." He looked at his own balled up fist and watched it explode open, empty. "He was gone." Enough tears had come to slow their flow, but he didn't look up. He'd forgotten who he was talking to, or that he was talking to anyone. When he remembered who it was, he grit his teeth and shook his head.

"Sorry," he forced out, pushing himself up. "You didn't need to hear my—" When he turned, he saw tears dripping from Mew's eyes as well.

Mew stared back at him. A storm hung behind his gaze. A dam stood between them so palpable Max thought he could touch it with a paw, feel the leaking cracks. Mew desperately needed to say something to him, but Max had no idea what. "O-oh," he said. "Th-that must have been quite difficult for you. I'm sorry."

Max flinched away. The response felt plastic, wrong, but he shook it off. What was he expecting? "Yeah," he mumbled. His thoughts lingered on his partner for a second too long. By the time he caught himself, new tears had already formed. "W-well, I can't stay here forever." He had no idea if he could, actually, but he figured it was a good excuse.

"R-right, yeah," Mew agreed. "Well, see you later."

"Yeah," Max mumbled. He prepared himself for, well. The past times had mostly felt like waking up, but apparently this one was different? He shook his head to clear it when all at once—, "Wait!" He threw his paws up and leapt back. It was a long shot, but it was all he had. "I-I wrote a letter," he begged. "I don't know where he is, or if he's—," he cut himself off before he gave into tears again, "—If I bring it to you, can you get it to him?"

Mew looked back. Max couldn't tell if he was stunned or uncertain. Probably both. After a moment, he closed his eyes and shook his head. An endless depth engulfed the remains of Max's heart. "Yeah," Mew chuckled. "I'll see what I can do." Before Max could ask what was so funny, he was gone.