I’ve been put on trial and this is me pleading my case, behold
The ship tier list
[this is only pairings notable to me as of right now, June 2024, pairings may be added or removed and this list is exclusive to ships I’ve thought about extensively.]
Nothing major here, just me projecting my mental illness onto a character.
Chapter Summary: Salamanca needs a good polish after a day at work, though Emmet thinks it could wait.
Chapter Word Count: 604
While something like Windex is good for actual glass, Chandelure are not made of the same type of glass used in construction or mirrors. It is quite organic, really, even though it is as translucent as glass, and has the same texture and weight. Over the years, Ingo had figured out the best cleaner was simply vinegar, diluted just enough to not overpower his nose. And this was how Emmet found him on a random 3am search around the house for his conspicuously absent brother.
“I am Emmet. You should be asleep, mister,” he says sitting down on the back patio a fair distance from his brother to avoid the vinegar smell himself. “Just because you were working a late second shift this week doesn’t mean you don’t sleep.”
Ingo simply nods as he works on a particularly scuffed part of his Pokemon, the soft squeaking noise coming clear through the night air. After a moment, Ingo looks up at his brother, as though just processing what Emmet has said. “Oh, I’m sorry, it took a moment for the train to come to station.” He looks back away from Emmet and goes back to cleaning some more dirty spots on Salamanca. “I did sleep a bit after work, there’s no need to worry.”
Emmet’s tired grin flattens a bit, and he huffs. “You slept for 2, maybe 3 hours, Ingo. You need more rest than that.” Ingo makes no motion to acknowledge what Emmet said, causing his expression to flatten fully. “And why are you polishing Salamanca at this time of night? I thought that was a morning routine for you.”
“I had to spend a lot of nights awake in Hisui,” Ingo says, gently pushing the bucket of vinegar away and pulling a bucket of clean water closer to rinse off where the vinegar was, her purple flames coming through that portion clearer. “Not ‘had’, specifically, but more that I did. Either nightmares of memories trying to shake loose, or aches and pains, or just plain insomnia.”
As Ingo single-mindedly cleans Salamanca, the Chandelure humming contently from the attention as she continues to doze, Emmet gently taps the deck he’s sitting on. “How long have you been cleaning her, Ingo?” There’s silence between the two for a moment, before Emmet raises his voice . “Ingo!”
Ingo jolts, then looks at him wildly. “What??”
“How long have you been cleaning Salamanca?”
Ingo sits there for a moment, and blinks hard and shakes his head. “About an hour. She should be good in a few minutes.”
“Good,” Emmet says, standing up. “I am Emmet. I am running the Super Double line in the morning, so I need her. I’m gonna go shower for work now.” As he walks back to the back door of the house, he pauses, and looks back. “Please get some sleep, Ingo. Consider going back to your doctor about getting on your ADHD meds again, too.”
As Emmet walks inside and closes the sliding door, Ingo stares at the glass into the dark house, seeing a hallway light turn on as Emmet goes back towards his room. With a sigh, he turns back to face Salamanca, who had spun to face him and chimes. “He’s right, that would help a lot. Let’s get you finished, and then I’ll head to sleep while you go to work.” Getting a chime in agreement from his partner, Ingo gets to work on the last section of glass.
And nearly 30 minutes later, the glass door opens and Elesa pops her head out into view. “Ingy, go the fuck to bed.” The glass door slams shut.
I've been in the mood lately for Ingo never making it back, and Emmet and Elesa grieving his disappearance together. They're essentially that one picture of two exhausted characters holding hands like "we have a lot of problems that making out won't solve, but won't make any worse" haha.
Elesa goes to Ingo and Emmet's apartment because it's another anniversary of The Isekai and she's feeling lonely, and she knows Emmet will be even lonelier, so hey, at least they can be lonely together. She just lets herself in because Emmet gave her a key years ago and she's not really expecting him to answer. Sure enough, poor Emmet is already facedown drunk on the living room couch.
"Good morning, Elesa."
"It's afternoon."
"It is the weekend. It is fine."
"Emmet, sweetie, it's Tuesday."
And Emmet decides that yeah, ok, it's time to get up and try to clean up a bit, that's pretty bad, even for him. Elesa follows him to the bathroom and stands behind him to wash his hair while Emmet sits in front of her in his boxers (because it's not like it's anything Elesa hasn't seen before). The subject of Ingo inevitably comes up, and Emmet reaches up behind him and wraps his hand around Elesa's thigh, slides it up and squeezes and then just stops and stays there, says he doesn't want to think about that yet. Or rather, he's BEEN thinking about him this whole time, and he doesn't want to talk about it right now, wants a break from thinking for a little bit. Elesa decides that yeah, ok, she doesn't want to do this yet either, she'd rather just be distracted for a bit and lets him carry her to the bedroom.
When she wakes up later, Emmet is gone and his pillow is cold, so Elesa helps herself to one of Ingo's giant old sleep shirts out of his drawer, because it's nice to have him just that little bit closer. She goes and finds Emmet smoking on his balcony and he apparently had the same idea, since all he's wearing are pajama pants that match her shirt with little Litwicks on them.
Elesa sits on the concrete next to him and they do finally talk about Ingo a little bit, staring out at Nimbasa. Emmet rambles a bit about inheriting everything Ingo left behind, and how there wasn't a lot of legal fuss about it. He and Ingo couldn't be officially married obviously, but at least Emmet was his next of kin. Because neither of them wanted ANYTHING of theirs to go to their good-for-nothing parents. But this presents a problem now, because Emmet had never honestly thought the universe would be so cruel as to leave him without Ingo. He never thought he'd have to worry about finding another next of kin.
Elesa sits there nodding along, listening, handling it all pretty well until Emmet wraps it up with "-which is why you and I should get married" and she nearly drops her cigarette right in her lap.
"Emmet."
"I am Emmet, yes."
"That's the least romantic proposal I've ever heard."
"Hah, it is probably the only proposal you have ever heard."
Elesa sits there and thinks about it a while because Emmet knows he just kinda dropped a bombshell and wasn't really expecting an immediate answer anyway. But marriage does have a lot of legal benefits. And if something does happen to Emmet, Elesa won't have any legal pull to even make sure his and Ingo's affairs are handled well. She doesn't want everything they made together to be ruined, especially with how hard she and Emmet had to work to keep everything running when Ingo disappeared so suddenly. Emmet is in the middle of telling her some goofy story about how he and Ingo once nearly got caught making out in their office and Ingo was so embarrassed he couldn't face any of their employees for like an entire week when Elesa blurts out of nowhere "OK, let's do it." Emmet cocks his head at her. "Get married I mean, not make out in your office." "Oh! Right."
Elesa agrees to it, but only if Emmet lets her finally move in like they've been kinda-sorta-maybe talking about for the past year or two now. Besides just wanting to be closer to Emmet (because no, they're not romantic, they're more besties with benefits but she does love him), she also wants to be somewhere filled with Ingo's presence, too. And he was here more than anywhere else. Emmet decides he's fine with that, because as it turns out he hates living alone anyway. It won't be the same without Ingo, but he wouldn't want it with anyone other than Elesa now.
They shake on it, declare themselves Spouses with Benefits, and then just go back to staring at Nimbasa while telling stories about Ingo doing stupid shit. It's not really Good, but it's Better, and that's as close as they can get right now, close enough.
