victory_road | [closed]

There are several scenes Armin was ready to walk in on: Angel might be awake already, and Miss Maya with her, with the kitchen smelling of coffee and Angel's cautious attempts at learning to cook; it could be just Miss Maya, in which case the kitchen would smell of coffee strong enough to strip paint; or they might both be asleep still, the house quiet and calm.

In any case, what Armin is not expecting is to walk in through the backdoor and see a stranger standing in the kitchen-- No, wait. Not a stranger. It takes him a second glance but then he realises it is Matt. He looks older, his hair longer and his body more lean, but that is certainly Matt.

So. He has returned to this world. But does he remember it? Any of it? Or is he completely clueless. And if he is clueless, how much has he been told? He must know a bit already, Armin reasons, seeing as someone brought him here. He wonders who it was. He wonders if he it was Shiro.

He wonders how not fine Shiro is right now.

Realising the silence in the kitchen has stretched into awkward and weird, he raises a hand in greeting, making a quick decision to treat it like Matt won't remember him. Better that than to add more confusion.

"Oh. Hello. Sorry, I wasn't expecting--" you to be here "--anyone to be here."

It is, in fact, Matt standing there in the kitchen, looking half awake as he stands in front of the stove. He's still in his pajamas, hair rumpled and loose around his shoulders. A smaller-than-average Solosis is floating around, watching with interest as he fries a pan's worth of tofu bacon and whatever egg substitute was in the fridge, because the idea of eating pokemon eggs is so unappealing it actually makes him shudder. Matt's eaten a lot of weird things in space, but never anything that was sapient at any point, or had the potential to hatch into a sapient lifeform. Yikes.

At any rate, Armin's appearance draws his eyes. This must be one of Shiro's friends, he assumes, and after the drawn-out silence is broken, he gives a jaunty little wave with his spatula.

"Sorry to intrude," he says. "I'm Matt, but you probably know that already if you live here. Sorry to make it weird." The Solosis makes a small, annoyed sound, and Matt nods. "Right, and this is Blobert."

Laughing, Matt shakes his head, rubbing the back of his wrist against his tired eyes.

"You want some food? I made too much for myself. There's coffee, too."

After his talk with Matt is over, Armin is quick to try and find Shiro. He hopes Shiro is still here. That he hasn't left yet. That he hasn't ran yet.

Coming to the door of Shiro's tiny bedroom, Armin raps his knuckles against the door, his hand already on the handle. "Shiro?"

He'll give him the courtesy of inviting him in, but if he won't, Armin is absolutely barging inside. There is a time and a place for politeness. But that time and place is not now. Not when he knows Shiro is not, despite whatever he might insist, doing fine.

"Shiro, it's Armin."

Not greeting him with his name -- Armin and Matt had never been particularly close, but even so, that is enough for Armin to understands that Matt doesn't remember his previous stay here.

And that. Boy. That was going to be a lot for Shiro to deal with.

"Actually, I don't live here anymore. I live on that boat over there." Armin nods towards the kitchen window, the one that overlooks the beach and his boat which has been moored there. Normally he stays closer to his Lapras, but the last few weeks, he's wanted to make sure to stay close to Angel. "I'm Armin. It's nice to meet you. And you, Blobert."

"And if you are sure you have more than you need. I can always make some breakfast myself once you are done."

"I'm sure. Grab a plate." Matt serves up generous portions of eggs and bacon for both himself and Armin. There's a separate dish of pokemon food for Blobert, which Matt sets on the counter. Coffee is poured and a bowl of diced fruit is pulled from the fridge before Matt makes his way to the table.

"Were we friends before?" he asks, cutting to the chase as he takes a seat. The awkwardness from a moment before had to mean something, surely. "I don't have any of those memories, just to be up-front with you. It's kind of weird being in a place where everyone knows an entirely different version of you."

He laughs dryly. 'Kind of' weird is an understatement. It's extremely weird.

"We were... aquaintances, really. Friendly acquaintances." Maybe that will be somewhat of a relief of Matt? It doesn't change the fact that Matt has suddenly been thrown into a very weird situation, but at the very least, he doesn't have to account for a years-long friendship with this particular stranger.

Armin takes a seat at the table, murmuring a word of thanks when the plate of bacon and eggs is passed to him. "I'm sorry. I know this must be incredibly weird for you. If I can ask, who brought you here?"

"Friendly acquaintances. Okay. That's fair." Is it a relief? He's not sure. It's good, he guesses, not to have any very high expectations to live up to.

"It's weird, yeah, but my weirdness threshold is pretty high. You have to learn to be adaptable or you won't make it, you know?" Well, that sounds pretty grim, but that's the reality of Matt's experience. War is brutal that way.

He does sigh softly at Armin's next question, though.

"It was Shiro. He loaned me one of his pokemon. Green, I think? It looks like a brachiosaurus had a baby with a banana tree. And... yes, I know about the version of me that was here before, and... everything that entails."

There isn't an answer.

But it isn't because Shiro isn't home. He's in there - but he's absorbed in something else entirely. Something that isn't emotional, something logical, a problem that can actually be solved. He's planning his next gym battle, pouring over a notebook and his 'gear like his life depends on it.

Fortunately, he is in possession of a very determined Meowth. So it isn't Shiro who answers the door. It's Luna. Who sits there looking up at Armin with the most pleased expression a cat can wear.

Shiro... still hasn't looked up from his frantic scribbling.

Armin winces for a moment.

Personally, he does think it is good Matt was told about his previous stay in this world, including his short-lived marriage to Shiro. It's a lot to digest at once, but to him, it is best to deal with it upfront than have everybody try and dance around the subject. The truth, to him, is always preferable to a pleasant lie. He's a bit of a masochist like that.

Still, even with that attitude, he still recognises that must not have been a fun conversation. For either Matt or Shiro.

"Normally I'd offer to answer any questions you might have about this world, but... it sounds like you got more than enough to think about already."

"Thank you, Luna."

Good meowth, best meowth.

Bending down, Armin scoops her up, allowing her to settle onto his shoulder before he steps into the room, closing the door behind him. For a moment he just watches Shiro, the way he is furiously scribbling away at something, jabbing the buttons of his gear, before going back to his notes. It's running without running, hiding while remaining in plain sight.

This is going to be one hell of a conversation.

Stepping in, Armin rests one hand on Shiro's arm to catch his attention. "Shiro?"

"What!"

It's more of a yelp than it probably would have been if he'd noticed the door opening. But it passes quickly, and allows Luna to leap from Armin's shoulder to walk all over Shiro's notebook. As cats so often do.

"Armin. Hey. I didn't hear you come in." Yeah, no kidding. "Are the Lapras all right?"

That's genuinely the concern here, at least. Not an avoidance of a first question.

It's less 'was told outright' and more 'read between the lines' but he's not splitting hairs about it. It wasn't fun and it is a lot to digest, but Matt's always been good at processing things. Much like Armin, he finds it far preferable to see the world for what it really is rather than allowing himself to get caught up in some illusion. He's pragmatic like that.

That doesn't mean he can't keep moving forward.

Matt shakes his head as he takes a bite of the faux bacon (fake-on?).

"Actually, I do have some questions. I've been reading about pokemon evolution, but isn't metamorphosis a better word for it? There are biologists that study pokemon, right?"

"Probably yes. Some of the papers I've read differentiate between micro-evolution --that is, an individual pokemon changing shape as it matures and grows stronger-- and macro-evolution as being the kind that takes place across millions of years."

Armin can't call himself a biologist that studies pokemon. Not yet, anyway. He should get his degree first before making any such claims.

"From what I can tell, micro-evolution has been known to humans for, well, thousands and thousands of years. Basically from when they first started working together with pokemon. Macro-evolution didn't become known until much later when they actually started to be able to understand and analyse fossil pokemon."

Hello nerd, meet fellow nerd.

"Micro and macro, huh? I wonder if anyone has created a cladogram of the known pokemon species. It's... kind of bizarre to think of this world, where every animal species is sapient." This is why he's apparently going vegan now? "On the other hand, there only seem to be a few hundred actual species...? That's kind of a shockingly small number when you consider that there are millions of eukaryotic animal species on Earth."

He laughs and shakes his head.

"I guess every planet is different. It seems like the biomes are healthy, at least. Makes you wonder about the state of microscopic life here. Are there bacteria, and are those bacteria also pokemon? If so, does that mean they're sapient too, and what implications does that have for, I dunno, disinfecting your counters before and after you cook." Matt you're overthinking this.

"The Lapras are fine, Shiro."

But Shiro is not. Armin is not even going to ask him if he is. He knows what Shiro would answer anyway and he knows it would be completely utterly false.

Armin chews his lip for a moment, trying to think of how to tackle this particular subject. Straight-on, he figures.

"So. I ran into Matt in the kitchen..."

"There are some cladograms in some of the books I own. I can show them to you later, if you want. Though, in some cases, there is still a lot of debate about where certain pokemon slot in."

And if they slot in at all. There is still some lively debate going on about whether or not Clefairy and its ilk are actually from the moon or if they are from poke-Earth like everything else. The debates can get very spirited!

"Bacteria and viruses certainly exist. I mean, you can get sick here. And it is important to keep wounds clean while they are healing. There would be no need for that if there were no bacteria, right?"

Why don't they count as pokemon, we just don't know. It's almost as if this world doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny of any kind. Weird.

Edited 2020-08-09 22:13 (UTC)

"Good."

He's wondering, then, who's disappeared now. If he should be checking his boxes for pokemon he never caught. Or, if he needs to brace himself and check the network.

Turns out he does need to brace himself. But not for the reason he assumed.

"... yeah?" Is just about the only answer he can summon up, in the moment. Luna takes it upon herself to march over to his lap, pointedly kneading at his knee. "He... changed a lot. Didn't he?"

"Yes, I suppose he has."

Not that Armin knew Matt all that well, but if nothing else, there are the visual changes. Nobody can deny those.

But, really, the physical ways in which Matt has changed are not that important. If it was just that, adjusting would be easy. The most important change is, no doubt, the fact that Matt does not remember his previous stay in this world. There was always the risk of that, and Armin knows Shiro knew that too, but being aware of the chance of it and actually having to deal with it are two very different things.

And knowing Shiro, he is not dealing. Not at all.

"How are you feeling right now. And don't tell me you are fine. You and I both know that is a lie."

Those visual changes make it very hard to focus sometimes.

It is a lie. Because he's shut himself in his old room, he's buried himself in a problem that can be solved. In something tangible and rational. He can't even be upset about all this, can he? It's no one's fault. There's no reasonable way to direct anger, frustration, or any number of other more negative feelings.

"I don't know." Which just leaves... feeling confused. Constantly at war with feeling one way, and then immediately deciding that feeling is not allowed. That it's blaming someone who has no fault.

"How is someone supposed to feel, here?"

"I'd be interested in doing some research on those kinds of things, though I'm not a trained biologist or anything. It would just... be nice to do some science again after the war, you know?"

Because any friend of Shiro's has to know about the war. It's one of the defining aspects of their lives.

"You're right about the bacteria, though. It's just... weird. Feels like I'm living in a kid's cartoon." As if in response, Blobert floats over to land on the table with a wet plop and Matt snorts. "And I'm still getting used to this guy. But we make a good team--right, Blobert Hooke?"

He gives Blobert a little pat, which seems to please please him, then rubs his fingers over his napkin.

Armin has been told about The War, yes.

Though, there is something far more important to focus on right now.

"Wait, Blobert Hooke. As in Robert Hooke?"

Matt perks up a little bit when Armin gets the reference, a grin spreading on his face.

"Exactly right! I mean, he looks like a little cell, doesn't he? So I thought it only fitting to name him after the father of modern cell theory, only with a little bit of a twist."

"They really do. I had one like it before and I named it Hooke as well."

Listen, sometimes Armin is at a loss for names, and whatever nerdy thing he's reading at the moment will have to serve as an inspiration.

Honestly 'I don't know' is a much better answer than 'I'm fine'. There is honesty in 'I don't know', and the potential to actually address things rather than the running and hiding that comes with 'I'm fine'.

"I don't really know. I don't think there is a singular way you are supposed to feel. I know it is not really the same, but when Jean came back with any of his memories, I felt... sad. A sort of grief, I guess. It was still Jean but it was also... not him. Like a part of him had... gone." 'Died' had been on Armin's tongue but he had swallowed that word; no, that was not how he wanted to think of people who left this world. "I don't think it is wrong not to know what to feel right now. Or to struggle with conflicting emotions. Just as long as you don't run away from whatever you are feeling."

"I know you like to pretend like you are fine because you feel we should always be able to build on you, but... we can hold ourselves up for a while, Shiro. You don't need to be the one to always do it."

He sets the papers aside fully. Pushing the 'gear away too. For a moment, he just presses his face into his hands. What Armin's saying makes sense. Grief is a very, very good word for it. But at the same time -

"How... can I be upset? He's here. Pidge has her brother back." He says, as if that's the only thing that matters. There's still that feeling of allowed. Maybe the others can hold their own, but -

"I can't ask him to be someone he isn't anymore."

And maybe that's the hardest to think about. The hardest to try and accept. Part of him had gone. Like Armin just said. He can't ask him to try and bring it back. He won't. It's just too selfish...

That part, at least, is wrong. Despite Armin's reassurances.

"I just... need to accept it's done. It's not coming back. Then it'll... work out."

"Shiro, do you think I was out of line for feeling sad when Jean came back but didn't remember any of us? Or what we went through here?"

Armin shakes his head, not even waiting for the answer. Shiro has always been more generous with everyone else than with himself.

"I think... as long as you aren't blaming the person for not remembering... it's all right to feel sad too. Memories and experiences change a person. The Jean that came back wasn't the exact same Jean as the one who left. And though I was glad he was back here where he is safe, I was also a little sad for the things we had lost. That's... I think that is normal. Pidge might even feel the same way as you do. She has her brother back, but she also lost another version of him."

Armin chews on his lip for a moment.

"In fact, maybe you should talk to her about that. She might be dealing with the same things you are dealing with. It could be good... to talk to someone else. Someone who understands."

"Obviously it's not right to ask Matt to try and be someone he was before, but I know you won't do that. You are not that kind of person. You're a kind person, Shiro. But you also need to be kind to yourself and not run away from what you are feeling."

"You asking me that means you already know what I'm going to say."

That Armin already knows what the answer is. That no, he doesn't think anyone else could be out of line. Just... himself. Why is that so much harder to do? He can't blame Armin for grieving over Jean's lost memories. He can't blame Pidge - if she feels the same. So why... does he feel as if he can't allow himself that same grace?

"I don't blame him." It probably doesn't need to be said again, but he does so anyway. "I - can't blame anyone for leaving."

Maybe that's why it's so hard when they do. There isn't anyone to blame. No one to place the anger and sadness on the shoulders of.

No one but ... himself?

He pushes his hands through his hair again. Resting his face against the backs of his wrists, as if the cool metal is going to somehow smother down feelings. "I ... maybe. If she's had time to talk to him, first." Because Pidge is from, apparently, further ahead in time than he is. She might even know this version of her brother better. Maybe this would be better for her.

The words he finally lets out are very quiet. His window is open, and the sounds of the surf nearly drown them out. But they're there. They exist.

"... I missed him. So much."

"I know. And it's okay for you to still miss him, the version of him that you married. Nobody will blame you. Nobody will insist you just need to move on now that another version of him is back here."

Nobody but Shiro himself. But Armin knows all about being your own worse enemy. He knows what it is like to take the voice of your own insecurities as the thoughts of your friends. It's a hard cycle to break free from --Armin isn't even sure he has, not all the time-- but it is something worth striving for.

"I... blame me."

Which Armin probably already knows. Heck, all of Johto and Kanto combined probably know that. But there's something to be said for letting the words out, isn't there? His hands ball into fists against the blanket on the bed, joints white through the skin of his left.

Of course he blames himself. Who else is there to? Why can't he just be happy his friend is alive and well and back somewhere safer than a warzone?

"I'm sorry, Armin." For not being able to let it go.

Yes, hearing Shiro say the words is some progress, at least. It's better than denial, even if it still isn't particularly healthy.

Armin shakes his head. "It's not me you should be apologizing to, really. I hate seeing you like this but... probably the person you are hurting worst with this is... you, Shiro." His words are a touch awkward, mainly because it is difficult finding the right way to say them. It's not like these things are really talked about much back in his world.

Which just brings him back around to the start. To what am I supposed to do? It's fine, isn't it, if he's the only one hurting. If he's the one who's in the most pain. That's... fine.

Isn't it?

What is he supposed to do if he's... hurting? There's no cure for this. There's no bed rest or painkiller that can help with this. His eyes are on the end of the bed, on the blanket balled in a fist.

"That's - better than hurting someone else."

As long as they're being honest, here...

"Do you have a lot of pokemon? I know they gave me some of the balls to catch more but... I didn't. Not yet." He laughs sheepishly.

"I could have a running theme and name all of them after influential scientists. That'd be cool, right?"

"It took me almost a month to catch my first pokemon. I just... really wanted to know what I was doing before I started adding more pokemon to my team. There is no rush if you want to get settled first. In fact, I know some people who barely ever catch new pokemon. It's really just what you are personally comfortable with."

Though Matt's other question needs a moment of thought. "I currently have... nearly forthy regular pokemon. A few members of a Wailord pod but those swim out in the wild. And 21 Lapras right now."

He actually has to pause for a moment to consider that.

"That number sounds really overwhelming when I put it like that."

[closed]

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