He ties ribbons around their necks and clips them on their ears, and never thinks they’re good enough. He ignores them when they rub against him for pets, focusing on his newest Eevee, so tiny and soft and full of potential. He keeps trying, and trying, and every time he sees black instead of pink and his face falls. Or he perks up at a glimpse of a paler color--but no, that’s the wrong shade, and there’s the forked tail, and he is even more crestfallen.
Until one day he gives up on a Sylveon. It’s never going to happen for him. He slams the door, and cries with his head in his hands, and can’t stand to look at the warm, soft bodies pressing against his back, rubbing against his knees.
He can’t stand to look at the ribbons and bows. He avoids the Pokemon for two days and then, in one explosive burst of frustration, he takes all the bows, stuffs them into the trash--only just managing to keep his trembling hands gentle on soft necks and ears. It’s not their fault. He knows it’s not. It’s his. He rubs a black ear, worried that it might be sore. It’s his fault.
He pets them more. It’s not their fault they’re not what he wanted. He feeds them, and restarts the training sessions that had ended when each one evolved. He doesn’t know their movesets; he starts reading. He learns what he can ask from them, and then learns from them too: which one would rather Quick Attack than use Confusion, which has a Mean Look that freezes even him in place. It’s fun. It’s more fun than it ever used to be, when he followed all the best training manuals so anxiously. They respond, growing and learning and butting into them for pets that he sheepishly gives them.
It’s inevitable, with thirteen of them in the same place, that eventually two would breed. He holds the tiny Eevee in his cupped palms. So soft. So warm. He knows which Espeon gave her those extra-long ears and which Umbreon is responsible for her round little nose. He is fascinated.
He pets her. He holds her. He watches her try to mimic the others and he smiles when they high-step over her or when they lift her by the scruff. She joins in on training sessions and for a moment there’s the thought--but she’s having fun copying one of her aunties and he’s not going to change that. She learns what she likes because she likes it. She’s the happiest Eevee he’s ever trained, and he doesn’t need her to be anything else.
But she changes, of course. Children grow up and Pokemon evolve. Espeon, he thinks when she changes in daylight, when he sees a pale coat--but no, that’s the wrong shade--
He is dumbfounded. The rest of them are not. They crowd around, pushing him and Sylveon together, pressing against both of them until everyone is one pile of fur and waving tails. He laughs and hugs her first--and then the nearest Umbreon, and the next.
He is happy, of course. But not because of what she is. He's glad that it means she’s happy. And she is happy. He gets the sense, watching her examine her own ribbons, that she became exactly what she wanted.
Maybe he should start keeping some stones in the house. It’s inevitable, with fourteen Eeveelutions around, that they’re going to keep breeding, and the next Eevee might want something different.
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