#broken arc

[kniteracy]

A Quiet Shift in Fungelmire?

From The Amazing Catwoman: This is my ‘unsettled’ face…. So, yeah. I took last year off from working security at the Great Faire, and it was worth it. I enjoyed doing not-much, but more importantly, the offer to work this year’s Faire came with considerably more remuneration than previous Faires! I guessed they missed me, eh? Either that or someone bet I wouldn’t get a full-on purple skin paint…

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[illustrations-by-tram]

This was all a set up for a story arc I never followed up with but in short it gives a reason for why people get powers later on

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

It took him a minute to remember where he kept his pokemon’s pokeballs. Khoshekh waited patiently for Leverette to locate the drawer in the kitchen, using the time to lick her muddy paws clean while the man grabbed a dishtowel to wipe the capsules free of the dust that had collected over the months and rolled himself over to the door. He held the towel out and the Liepard’s ears twitched with indecision before allowing him to clean the rest of the mud. He wished he could do more. He wished he could bury his face in her fur and never leave but he’d lose an eye for that. He contended with settling for the tail sweeping across his arms when she passed by and watched her crouch over a water bowl in the corner for a drink.

Amasis and Gaia were waiting in the other room, and he careful maneuvered the wheelchair around her to call them back into their pokeballs for the boat ride over the ocean. “It shouldn’t be too long of a trip,” Leverette called out when a wheel struck the corner on the turn. He put more force than necessary into getting around it. He disliked putting his pokemon in their respective pokeballs. There was never a reason to, not when the house was big enough and they worked in the shop. “We already have a place picked out for us. It should be big enough.” The pair already knew this. Leverette thought maybe the more he talked, the less the silence would affect him when they were gone. His hands almost dropped the pokeballs back in his lap when we picked them out to call back his pokemon. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

His voice did nothing to ease the sudden silence that weighed heavily on his eardrums. It seemed to echo in the house, with no more of his family there to hear it. Except Khoshekh. He still had her…for now. The sound of her claws clacking against tiled floor did more damage than good in the quiet. He’d never hear it again, really. Not after today. She came to sit besides his chair, blinking wary eyes at the empty space the Noctowl and Gogoat had been, and Levy moved a hand away from his lap to scratch at her torn ear.

“I guess this means the end, doesn’t it?” The end of his house. The end of the store. The end of all the moping. “I don’t know when we’ll be returning and I don’t know if you’ll still be here.” It had hurt, thinking about leaving everything behind, but thinking about it and going through with it were too very different things. It was sad, but now, looking at his empty house and hearing the rough purring that he’d never experience again was turning the sadness into a pain he couldn’t bear. “I bet it’s not as hard for you.” Khoshekh was wild, after all. An abandoned pokemon who’d grown strong and wild and mistrusting. Abandoned again. He wiped at his face with his free hand. “You’ll forget all about me and some other trainer will more courage than myself will call you their own. You’ll take you to places you’d never be able to even dream about and you’ll show your true strength in gym battles.” Levy scratched under her chin and gave her a small smile.

The Liepard returned the look, golden eyes flat, and rose to her paws with a growl. Levy nodded and moved to turn his wheelchair around to let her back outside until the pokemon stepped in front of him, tail twitching. He raised his brows at her. “No? I still have a can left if you want them before we-” Leverette shut his mouth when she prowled close and rested her head on his lap. His smile grew, regret still showing in the corners of his curled lips. “I’m sorry. You wouldn’t like the boat. Someone would get hurt.” Her ears flattened and he couldn’t help but chuckle, running both hands through her short ruff. Khoshekh surprised him by leaning into the touch, and surprised him even more when she stretched her neck towards the other empty pokeballs. He let her, biting the inside of his check, when she nudged at it.

He’d never wanted to force her into one. Everything about their relationship had been of her own choice. In the beginning, he’d sometimes show her one, but the prideful flick of her tail or lifting of her chin soon made him realize her decision. He wasn’t going to do anything about her decision now, if that was what this was. Levy’s heart raced as her eyes flashed between the options and he prayed that she’d choose to come with him. He couldn’t leave another one behind. And not Khoshekh. Not his irritable Liepard.

He felt his heart skip its next few beats when the pokeball clicked. He couldn’t breathe. There was no space for his lungs to expand, trapped between his ribcage and the sheer weight of happiness filling every inch of him as the spotted pokemon accepted everything that came with settling inside the capsule.

He was afraid to touch it. Afraid that any contact, no matter how light, would break the pokeball and the pokemon inside would never choose the same option again. Leverette put Amasis’ and Gaia’s pokeball inside his bag, and left Khoshekh’s, his Liepard’s, in his lap.

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

The first surgery was a success– or so they told him when he wakes again. He was alive, and Leverette supposed that was the silver lining of this hard, but it was hard to see behind all the gray. The gray cloud that hung over him and made his head too heavy to lift, they gray of the world outside he could see only from the small window across the room, the gray of the large disk now implanted in the bone the angry Abomasnow had to graciously left for him. That might also be a plus, he thought with a sour twist of his mouth. No longer would he have to see the healing scars at the premature end of his leg. There was a rod there now to look at, to divert his attention when he finally pulled himself together, away from the gray thoughts and the gray future, long enough to see the silver lining of the present. Silver was a kind of gray too.

The fitting was a success. His doctor has received word that it was being made as they spoke and Christophe had given him a tight lipped smile. He didn’t return it.

“There’s a few more things we’ll need to smooth out before we can let you know about a discharge date,” the doctor was saying while Leverette watched gray snow fall from the gray clouds outside the glass tinted a lighter gray with frost. He hadn’t bothered to learn the older man’s name (strange, that would usually be the first thing he’d memorize, and then the face so he could thank him later), but he heard his father mumble out a vague, name-sounding word and a sentence. “Your choice of physical therapy is the first major point. You know we’ve already suggested Hoenn. I know of a great place there in Verdanturf, and the weather is nice this time of year – warm and breezy.”

The sound of the foreign region made him turn away from the window. He’d hear of Hoenn before…somewhere. A small voice, a quiet interest. A boy who had waited all night to work up the courage to ask him about Khoshekh. The faint smile on his face from the memory felt strange of his face, but not unpleasant, and he let it stay. Many trainers had been packing for Hoenn, and if he remembered correctly, he’d felt a little excited just hearing about it. The doctor took the small upturn on his mouth as a sign to continue.

“It’s actually where your prosthetic is being fashioned. In a few days, we can transfer you there and see it for yourself. You’ll be walking in a little under five months if you’re patient.” Leverette nodded again. Matthew. That was the doctor’s name. He ran a finger down the clipboard in his hand and tapped it twice. “One more thing – and this is a fun question.” Levy tried hard to widen to smile but it made his mouth hurt. “Some of the piece’s detailing can be colored. Do you have a preference?”

Leverette glanced away for a moment. “Pink?”

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

He's crying when the doctors lead Christophe in to see the results of the surgery. The anesthesia is wearing off and the reality of the situation is hitting the younger man with every second of returning clarity. Christophe can see the regret in his eyes when he turns his neck at the sound of the door whispering against tiled floor when he enters and the remorse that taints every silent tear that rolls down his face and leaves a salty track to burn the still open wound. 

There's no going back now. There's no more trying to save Ares. There's no more hoping for a different past. There's no more praying for change. He'd cast that aside the moment he signed consent and he'd known it. He'd just thought it would feel different. Easier. Letting go. Instead he can't help but to reach back for it because he's not letting go, he's abandoning Ares again.

The rod in his leg doesn't feel like hope. It feels like a heavy reminder. 

Christophe runs a hand through his hair and Leverette doesn't ask him to leave. 

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

Hestia was draped over his hips when the doctor came in with a slam of the door and a swirl of his white coat. No one, especially him, had been happy to escort Leverette back into his hospital room when he returned early in the morning from his supposed visit to the Lumiose pokemon center. Levy winced at the crack of the wood swinging shut. The staff weren't ones to ignore his kind of behavior, and neither were his pokemon, as his Ninetales only lifted her head to watch the older man cross the room with wary eyes. Levy turned his gaze away, his shoulders tensing the longer the doctor remained silent and flipped through notes. 

Aelferic hopped on the bed just before the man cleared his throat and Levy rubbed his Sylveon behind an ear with an thumb to thank her for the offer with a smile even as his heart twisted around another knot of guilt. He would have to stop relying on her, and soon, if he ever wanted to feel okay about Ares. His eyes slipped closed and he struggled to force himself away from those thoughts. 

"We've gotten word that your transfer has been processed and your measurements received." His level gaze said he was more than happy to have his presence gone. "Your surgery is scheduled for the weekend."

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

Leverette's glass nearly missed the table when he put it down, bottom of the bottle ringing hard against the edge. Christophe caught it before it could fall and righted the empty glass before finishing his own glass. Leverette ran a hand through his hair and mumbled a word under his breath. He could still see it, the box with the golden nameplate, the small lettering etched into the metal. He could still feel the cold stone under his fingers, though more than possible it was the bottle still chilled from the beer inside. He forced clenched fingers to loosen their grip and placed his hand on the table to alert a passing waitress. 

Christophe put his own hand over Leverette's and the younger man's lips curled into a scowl until his father reluctantly pulled back. Leverette didn't want to see the grave of his pokemon and when another bottle was placed on the table, the outline fuzzy and label illegible, he decided he was off to a good start. 

[hutchedrabbit-blog]

The nurses gave him tight-lipped frowns and forced smiles as Christophe rolled him thought the main lobby and out the automatic doors to the car. He kept his eyes on his hands folded in his lap, aware of the looks without having to meet eyes wavering between pity and frustration. He didn’t have to look at the results of his test, either, well aware of the pain in his leg and the stiffness in his arms from the exercises and needles. The hums and tilted brows of the doctor in-between flipped pages gave him the answer he’d known was coming, but there he was, out the doors and feeling his face burn with a cold wind he hadn’t felt in weeks.

He shouldn’t have been out of the hospital. That was what it all came down to. Past that answer was the knowledge that he was a special case, he could leave despite his condition, only because sitting in the stark room was making him worse. There was nothing to do but think in that small bed, and his thoughts always turned to Ares, leaving him silent and brooding and slowly slipping away. Letting him out to see his pokemon might make it easier, but his shoulders only sagged with more guilt even when the pressure of all the gazes left behind with the sliding of the doors. Leverette took his father’s offered hand without word and let him pull him to his foot so he could hobble the few short steps to the open door.

He almost didn’t leave when they pulled up to the pokecenter in Lumiose. There was nothing in his stomach to heave but it twisted and knotted until he doubled over out the door, breathing heavily. The wheelchair was unfolded from the trunk and he sullenly slipped into it to be pushed around the building. A wall was built behind it, drawers upon drawers, decorated with golden nameplates of the pokemon who couldn’t be saved and trainers who had declined to take them. Leverette couldn’t get another breath down when it came into view and his hand shook hard as they neared. Jerky fingers pressed against the cold nameplate of his Fennekin. A bitter wind slapped against his face and froze the tears on cheeks.

He didn’t belong there. His ashes didn’t deserve to be tossed into a tiny box and shoved behind a wall. Ares should have been home, under one of the trees in the small backyard that he liked. No one should have to look at the tag and think of the trainer who had left him behind. Ares deserved better than that, better than him.

Fabric whispered against fabric and Leverette turned in his seat to watch his father rub at his face. “Je ai besoin d' un verre.”

Levy nodded.