Siemprexviren

Stubborn. Stubborn. Stubborn.

 Leaf awoke Christmas morning alone with her pokemon. So many years of Christmas with family, waking-up early, dragging Giovanni out of bed, sharing and giving presents. Simple and childish but it’s absence set Leaf in a deep melancholy. What was the other option though? Everything was different now, she’d hate anything Giovanni gave her and Leaf would spoil whatever cheer remained. Silver and Crystal didn’t need that. They needed their father to give them lots of toys and to eat too many cookies. Not worry after family drama and Leaf’s own problems.

 Leaf texted Crystal that she wouldn’t be home for the holidays --a callous move in retrospect-- and Crystal must’ve refused to take no for an answer. Because despite frozen winds and layers of snow Crystal appeared in the pokemon center Leaf camped out in. Wrapped in layers and with a determined gleam in her eye. Leaf was already on her feet before Crystal was even through the door. She checked for injuries and frost-bite, grasping at Crystal’s hands then face. 

“What’re you--” Leaf cut herself off as Crystal presented the gift. “Oh. Crystal.”

Leaf unwrapped the present, shrugged on the coat, and stuffed her hands in the pockets It hugged her shoulders and fit perfect. Leaf didn’t remember telling Crystal her size but if her sister just happened to know it? She wouldn’t be surprised. Since winter came Leaf’s fingers been chilled and a shiver at the edge of her body. Both absence of family and physical cold collected in her chest. 

 “Sorry..”

   And yet in spite of the apology for her predicament, Crys couldn’t help the small smile that appeared beneath the mask in seeing her sister’s determination. The League and its challenges had never been something that particularly interested Crys, but one thing the Sakaki siblings had always shared in the idea of is facing their father, the man who’d claimed to be the strongest trainer all their lives, in a real battle. She knew that for Leaf and Silver especially, it was a driving force for the Championship they both chased.

   Crys only hoped she’d get better enough to see it in time.

   The subtle smile remaining, Crys found her eyes drifting closed for a moment. It was nice to think about, the image of her family coming together for something they all shared a love of. That thought carried her, the look of pride in while the younger siblings cheered Leaf on from the sidelines of the stadium battlefield, and for a moment it looked as though she had finally reached her limit.

   “Si…… Sirius….”

   A jolt. The name alone was like a wake up call, eyes snapping open wide for the first time since her revival as the once quiet room was broken with a rushed metronome of increased heartbeats from the monitor nearby. Even the effort to raise her head was painful, her body unable to follow even though it was obvious she would have leapt from the hospital bed if her wounds weren’t a thousand pound weight on her entire being. But with the sudden shot of adrenaline through her system, Crys didn’t care about the pain. All she could think about was her team.

   His name echoed through her mind as flashes of rushing forests and pained howls permeated her memory. Sirius had been the reason she’d survived at all, and now she didn’t even know if he and the rest of her team were–

  “Is he okay? They… They were hurt and…!”

Leaf squeezed Crystal’s hand as she drifted off into sleep again. Crystal could put on a good show but Leaf could see how each word exhausted her. Leaf offered a small smile, a final, comforting expression before Crystal slipped off. She’d wait at her bedside until Giovanni returned and then she’d tag out of her role as Crystal’s guardian. Amazingly, there were still things she could trust the man with. 

The jolt startled Leaf upright. Leaf’s hands came to settle Crystal down and push her back down into the  bed. The spike in the heartbeat monitor alone froze Leaf’s fingers as she attended to calming down her sister. Leaf held tighter to Crystal’s hand and cupped her cheek with the other. 

“It’s okay, Crys!” Leaf interjected. “They’re okay-- better off than you are I’d say.”

Yesterday Leaf went to the pokemon center the pokemon were held at to check-up on them. Scratches and bruises, a couple broken bones, but nothing crippling. That was the thing about pokemon, they healed far faster than humans. In a couple weeks they’d be no worse for the wear except for a handful of scars. Leaf let them play with her own pokemon to wear them out and returned them to the nurse. If any of them were an appropriate size for a hospital room Leaf would bring them in so Crystal could see them herself. Leaf had a feeling she wouldn’t settle until she did. 

How like her sister to care more about her pokemon than herself. 

Once Crystal was prone again Leaf relaxed. She hooked her foot around the chair leg behind her and pulled it over to her. She sat down by the bed and sighed. 

Starters and prompts || Accepting

[ ☎ ] my muse calls yours in tears.

The caller’s timing sucked. Caught in the middle of a battle when her phone vibrated Leaf soured and resolved to ignore it. Followed by irritation at herself for not turning the damn thing off. The thin buzzing sound from her bag chased her all through the fight and the distraction proved a tipping weight in a balance effort. Leaf shelled-out twenty bucks (her dinner money) and stalked off to give someone a piece of her mind. 

Perched on the edge of a bench Leaf fished the offending gadget out of her bag but her breath caught when she read the caller ID. It was just a few minutes but Crystal managed to call her five times in that span. The odd behavior spawned possibilities that settled like lead in Leaf’s gut.  Leaf jabbed the green disc in the center of her phone and brought it to her ear.  

“Hey, sis, everything okay?” Leaf asked. She heeled her worry and stuffed it away in favor of lifting her voice into a chipper grin. 

The gargled sound of crying on the other end cut off Leaf’s question. The characteristic crack in Crystal’s voice when she tried to hold in her next ragged sob; A futile effort against waves of emotion. Unable to do the simplest thing as comfort her own sister Leaf’s hand fisted in her lap. 

 The world was already fading, shapes melting back into blots of colors and lights with shadows tinting the edges of her vision. Disoriented, Crys could hardly tell whether or not she even wanted the sleep that seemed about to descend upon her whether she was ready or not.

   But much like the anchor she was, Leaf spoke and reality sharpened and grounded her once again, her face the solid structure upon which Crys centered her focus. Shadows receded like they did when she was little, and her big sister would chase away nightmares of monster golbats and pigtailed-ladies that no longer had a face. And with this anchor keeping a gentle hold on her hand, Crys is able to listen as though her entire world hinged on her sister’s words.

   “Cinna….?” Tiredly she blinked up at Leaf, thoughts processing visibly in those foggy blue eyes. Badges. Cinnabar. A thought registered. “You did…?”

   Unladen with the usual sarcasm and playful banter they’d so often strike between them to draw out the conversation, Crys gave her sister a smile as brittle as glass, something fragile that might shatter merely by the force of will it took to stay awake. But it was a gesture of clear support, small and genuine even in times like these. Before the accident, she’d wondered what it would take since the confusing radio silence to call Leaf back from her adventure.

   Of course, this wasn’t what any of them had in mind.

   “That’s so cool. You must be so strong now…”

   A soft squeeze from fragile fingers.

   “That means…. you’ll go see dad soon?”

The hospital room was a bubble of space and time seperate from reality. It buffered against the raging storm that brewed just outside the door. In a vacuum Leaf could stomach Crystal's injuries and play the role of stable big sister. It was when the door opened and the wind rushed in, did the compounded on weight become too much. Crystal's mention of 'dad' ran a crack through the window.

The truth was Leaf already fought Giovanni, twice, in Celadon and in Saffron. She lost both. They weren’t battles, not like the rule-following matches she had with the gym leaders. They were fights, rising to fever pitches with passion embodied into each command. Those were only the face-to-face confrontations. Leaf’s near stalled her journey in favor of tracking down and facing off with Team Rocket. She only got the badge from Blaine because she happened to visit Cinnabar.

“Yeah, I will, and I’m going to win.”

Long before arriving Leaf decided that Crystal would not know. Over Leaf’s dead body would Crystal find out about Giovanni’s true nature.  Crystal has already been abandoned once and Giovanni was the one who filled in the space left. He was the one who loved her, cared for her; In their carved-out sanctuary in the forest. Leaf wouldn't take what Crystal already lost once. The secret tasted like poison but Leaf swallowed it whole. 

“Growlithe’s evolved, he’s almost bigger than Sirius,” Leaf began, she clutched Crystal’s hand a little tighter. “I’ll introduce you to the rest of my team later when you’re not so, um--” Leaf swept her hand over Crystal’s entire body in a broad gestured and grinned. 

“Incapacitated.”

Leaf sighed as her laugh trailed off. She looked back down at Crystal and rested her hand against her shoulder. Despite everything, despite how fucked this situation, Leaf couldn’t help but to imagine that that phone call was rock bottom. Crystal would heal, she’d defeat Giovanni, and if she worked hard, and  stayed focused; It’d all be worth it in the end when she got what she wanted.’

@starmarkcd 

  It had been a few hours since Crys had finally woken up, and it was a miracle she was able to relatively keep her consciousness even in small bursts. Relief had swept through the room, Giovanni had finally excused himself for the first time since he’d arrived, leaving the girls alone for the first time in what had felt like forever. With everyone out on their pokemon journeys and their father busier than ever, Crys only wished this wasn’t what it had taken for their next family reunion… But she was just glad they were here.

    Even as Leaf hovered nearby, Crys could already feel the effects of the anesthesia eating away at her ability to stay awake. The smile she tried maintaining for her sister quivered in response as the first wave of darkness washed across her vision. That probably meant the nurses would come soon too.

   “You and dad…. will stay, right?”

   After a moment the question comes out meekly, eyes foggy and pricking at the edges with unshed tears as the damage littered across her body tried to make itself known again. If she’d been able to move right now, her fingers would be fiddling with her locket, a habit she was craving right now if only for the sensation to move. She didn’t like this, the lack of movement or memories and something small inside her feared waking up here alone. She felt so little right now, and the constant fluctuation of her consciousness didn’t allow her pride to get in the way of the childish need to have her family nearby.

   “Just…. don’t leave, okay? Please…. sis….”

The call came in the middle of the night. Leaf sat on the edge of her hotel bed with a death grip on her phone and her jaw locked. She did not thank him and hung-up before casting the device aside and staring in the black of the night, heart thrumming. It didn’t matter what Leaf was doing in the moment. It didn’t matter the tension that sparked and stretched between her and Giovanni. Because Leaf dropped it when she took the first train into the city. 

No blood tied Leaf and Crystal together. In recent months that struck an anxious chord in Leaf’s soul as she wondered what did. That night Leaf found her answer. No matter the forest fire that ravaged the tree, the roots that bound them ran deeper. Even when the doctors explained to Leaf that Crystal’s survival depended less on the miracles of modern science, and more on Crystal’s desire to survive, Leaf responded with the absolute certainty that only a big sister could have:

“Of course, she’ll make it.”

 Giovanni could offer no reassurance Leaf would believe and neither of them tried in the silent vigil they held.  When Leaf left home the skittish little girl she met seven years ago was a tall and talented trainer. Crystal didn’t belong confined and broken and wrapped-up in that hospital bed. She was wild and untamed, like the tight curls that Leaf’d spend entire mornings before school trying to tie back. Crystal survived, Crystal flourished. 

“Yeah, we will,” Leaf murmured, her eyes running over over her sister’s bruised and bandaged face. “I’m-- We’re not going anywhere.”

Leaf reached over the bar of the bed and took Cyrstal’s hand, spreading her thumb over her knuckles. Leaf’s world crashed and burned around her, an impossible pressure fixed with a burning heat. At any second she’d crack and shatter, if not that then she was in the process of painful metamorphosis. All of it remained lock-and-key behind the gentle smile Leaf offered. 

@telekinetiq​

Spring came early this year. The forest underbrush peeked it’s way out of it’s hiding . Tentative and fragile, bringing the scent and vibrant color of green to the grey landscape. For Leaf it was too beckoning to spend even a second longer inside than she had to. 

She found the kid on her way outside, sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs. He was a little younger than her and small for his age, almost forlorn stooped over himself. Leaf stopped short, stared at the kid, rolled the baseball in her hands between her fingers, and then tossed it under hand at the kid. A slow, gentle throw aimed center mass. 

   “My, you certainly do seem strong…” The old man mused to himself as he watched the girl stride herself away, his swinub snoozing peacefully in his lap. “But are you certain you’re ready for the Ice Path? Even the journey there is nothing for any young one to scoff at.”

@leaf-fuguri​

There are two types of cold, Leaf learned that day. The kind that comes with the drop of temperature, burning frozen like ice against the skin. Then there’s the drop of fear in the soul and mind, paralyzing, absolute, and brittle. She wasn't here because she wanted to be and she didn't know how to get home, that turned her blood to slush. Her back remained to him, hands fisted against jean shorts too short for the weather. 

Intimacy || Accepting

Leaf fingers hooked under the loop of her uniform necktie as she entered the house by the front door. With a practiced flick of the wrist the offending neck trap is discarded. She left her back bag by the door and slipped off her shoes before escaping her jacket. Leaf stretched out her sore arms above her, standing on her tip-toes and bending back. Leaf settled back down on her heels and shouted, “Hey, Dad, I’m home!”

The call echoed through the large and spacious halls of the mansion. No reply circulated back and she shrugged as she discarded her jacket where she left her bag.  It was far too early for Giovanni to be home anyway but the ritual of screaming into the house was both satisfying and stress relieving after a long school day. She never got and never expected, a reply. At the least it notified the servants about her arrival. 

She began to walk to her bedroom but she drew short as she passed the sitting room doorway. Just the catch of a shape in the corner of her vision, a head of black hair. Dad sat on the couch with his back to her and his suit jacket slung over the armrest. It was genuine shock that had her pause with her hand on the doorframe. She corrected her earlier thought, Dad was never home this early. Her mind circulated worst case scenarios, something wrong or someone hurt--

“Daddy?” Her voice upturned, unbidden and concern escaping in her tone.

 She crossed the sitting room and peered over the back of the couch.  A book rested in Giovanni’s hands and not a letter spelling family’s doom. It was an advanced strategy guide for pokemon battling with intricate diagrams and technical explanatory paragraphs. Leaf’s fingers picked into the couch’s vinyl as her spike of anxiety settled to curiosity. Her hand braced against the back of the couch and she hurdled it to land next to him on the cushions. Her hand braced against his knee and she leaned over to read the page .Sticking her head right in his line of sight. 

An arm is slung around her neck and Giovanni pulled her to him. For a moment her cheek rested against his chest and his heartbeat thrummed in her ears, steady and strong. She sunk against him, arms wrapped around her stomach, and reading as he turned the page. At times she’d reach out and hold the page to stop him from turning it until she was ready. The strategy book talked about effective pure-offensive battling, training pokemon for it, tactical mindsets, and strategies to deal with counter styles. One page though had Leaf sit-up straight and put her finger to the offending diagram. A simple question:

Admittedly, that did jolt him awake.

Cyrus is a man of many mysteries and little to no shame to admit that he has, just now, fallen asleep in the most bizarre and awkward scenario. Sitting with his back straight against the couch and both palms over his knees, not on his couch, not even in his house; but that’s the scene anyway.

“You are later than I was told to expect.”

Cyrus is a human. But sometimes he blurs the line between what’s robotic and what’s not. It was only half a second between him being alerted awake from his unceremonious slumber, to him maintaining the ever unamused-ever-so-serious demeanor. As if in that split second he’s re-calibrated himself to the situation.

And he did. This is not nonsense, he really did it. You just expect him to did it anyway, explained or not. It is more believable.

However, what’s not believable, is Cyrus agreeing to take the place of greeting  Leaf when she arrives home in the absence of her father.

Leaf edged into the dark living room, squinting. When her eyes adjusted to the dark Leaf began to make-out Cyrus’ sharp features and his cold pale eyes from the shadows, confirming it was him. He  sat back on the couch, hands resting on his knees, and glaring at her. There was something unsettling, uncanny even, about the way he watched her, unmoving. 

“Well, we went to a 11:15 showing,” Leaf muttered, twisting a chunk of hair around her finger. “This is about when I--” She hesitated, mouth opened and lips shaping around the syllable. 

There were a few things to unpack here: One, Cyrus knew she left; Two, Cyrus expected Leaf back; Three, the only person who could tell Cyrus to wait is Dad; Four, Cyrus actually waited.There was an internal argument Leaf had earlier about how much her father cared that she left late at night to see a movie with her friends. The answer woud be not at all. If she asked though he'd say no so her impetus was to not caught.  

Shit. 

Protective Starters || Accepting

Leaf stared down at the corrected homework. Last night she took a stand, she made a statement. Last night as she and Crystal poured over the order of operations for algebraic problems Leaf would’ve taken to the grave her answers for five, eight, and nine. 

It was a true debate worthy of the ancient greek intellectuals such as Plato and Athanasus. Crystal on the left and Leaf on the right, a bowl of popcorn between them. Pride on the line. They argued over the philosophical, mathematical, and logical strings of algebraic order. Leaf offered the quandary to the forum for review and they debated the merits of their arguments. The final, dramatic say came in the form of the bright red ink the teacher used to mark the errors. 

Ten problems, three wrong: Five, eight, and nine. 

Next to Leaf smug triumph oozed from Crystal’s pores.

Leaf texted Dad last night on a whim. There was something about the way the Pokemon Center bench dug into her stiff shoulders that made her long for home. She rode out her evening on the high of victory after defeating Erika but attempting sleep in the bright but quiet center set a melancholy in Leaf. A reflective thought that pulled her phone from her pocket where she hesitated in consideration.

There was a promise she made to Dad before she left, that on occasion she’d text where she was and if she was alive. If she needed anything, so on, but it was tempered with her own desire to test herself. To complete her journey on her own will and ability. A few messages thrown back and forth though, and she agreed to meet him for coffee before she left for Saffron. Tomorrow morning she waited outside the department store –an easy to find landmark for both of them– with a grin and her badge case, presented with a proud flourish. 

“Four more to go,” Leaf promised, holding up the corresponding number of fingers. “You’re practically next, Dad!”

She fell in stride with him, hands shoved in her jean pockets. Celadon enchanted her when she first arrive. The city, hidden in the forest, appealed to a sensibility in her. She was no stranger to the world but she still eyes the glass store displays with curiosity. Toys, gadgets, sales, clothes; Colorful but useless crap she had no need or real desire for that still drew her curiosity. 

“I’m glad Cyrus gave me that Sneasel,” Leaf muttered, fingers brushing through the curls of her ponytail. “I’m not sure I could’ve beaten Brock without her– All the other gyms have been pretty simple compared to that. I think Surge has been the hardest so far. ”

She barked out a laugh and skipped ahead a stride. There was a time when she couldn’t be persuaded to follow in even her father’s shadow much less at his side. Just seeing him chased away worries, in an almost childish glee. Her grin flattened to a worried line, eyes flicking down and up for just a moment. 

“I probably should’ve mentioned it, before,” Leaf said, bitting her lip. “But I met these weird guys in Mt. Moon. I think they called themselves Team Rocket? They were trying to get these fossils down in the caves, I got one of them, a piece of Amber, I dunno what to do with it though–”

They were near the cafe and now Leaf’s arms crossed over her chest. There was a reason she didn’t tell Dad and it was because she didn’t want him to worry. Didn’t want him thinking she couldn’t handle this. 

   “Wow, isn’t that a find!” The girl, or rather the glimmer in her hand, certainly caught Burnet’s attention. Sure, the observatory scoured the beach for these things and they certainly fetched a fair price, but Burnet found them interesting for more than just their pricey glimmer. “A star piece, huh? You definitely lucked out there! They say this stuff forms where meteorites have landed.”

In Leaf’s hand was a sizable, pointed pebble, that glinted in the bright Alolan sunlight. White beach stretched out far as the eye could see and far beyond the limits of Leaf’s intended radius. Growlithe shuffled and yipped at their feet, running circles in anticipation at the new lady.