Chapter Text
Tioga woke up gasping for breath.
Their thoughts came to them immediately — their fingers grasped madly for their box cutters and did not find them; they bared their fangs and found that they had reverted back to incisors only slightly larger than normal; they extended their wings and were aghast to realize that they were once again incorporeal. Carnifex, they thought, searching around wildly with their eyes, where was Carnifex—
But their vision had returned to normal. It wasn’t the bloodstained feverish black tunnel they had been experiencing just a moment ago. Their vision was once again bright and clear and displayed colors the way humans saw them, or close enough, anyway. They focused on one thing at a time in the room around them: first, the soft beige of the four walls surrounding them; then, the prints that hung from the walls, beautiful tapestries of places in Hisui long-abandoned, ruins of monuments, the ruin of their own monument, far from those of their brother and sister; next, the thin smoke curling from the incense on the dresser against the wall, filling the room with calming hinoki cypress; and finally, the dual team of Garchomp and Spiritomb that were staring at them from close to the doorway in light astonishment.
Spiritomb made a motion, a slight inclination of his body towards what must have been the rest of the house they were in — for certainly it was a house, not a tent, though far larger than any of the houses Tioga remembered the Jubilife residents having — and Garchomp ducked his head through the doorway to scurry off to some unseen other room.
Because Spiritomb was a Ghost-type Pokemon, and Tioga was also a Ghost-type Pokemon, it was no trouble at all for them to understand each other in unspoken communication.
You’re awake, he said, stating what Tioga thought was quite obvious.
Tioga immediately said, Where’s Carnifex?! which, in all fairness, was also probably quite obvious.
Spiritomb in general unnerved Hisuians, and even more so at the way its expression rarely, if ever, changed no matter what it was doing or saying. Tioga was not one of these Hisuians. Bound to the Ghost-type since their creation, they had always seen as comforting the things that other people were terrified of, and this was no exception. Spiritomb’s face remained static as he said, You killed him. You don’t remember?
No, they didn’t remember. They pressed the heel of one hand, no longer covered in blood, to their forehead. If they tried for a thousand years they would never be able to dredge up even one second of the memory of actually killing Carnifex. I did?
You did. It was a valiant battle. Spiritomb’s lights flickered a little, as if in some sort of praise. You fought for him. To protect him. To defend him. The way the rest of us do — or did. If I harbored any doubts about you, rest assured they have vanished now.
Him … him …
Him.
There was an alarming crash from what was probably the living room, and then he appeared in the doorway, suddenly, one hand thrusting out to catch himself on the side paneling, in the unglamorous way of someone who had immediately bolted across the house to get to this room, tripping over himself along the way. He was wearing a house yukata, his hair tied up loosely like he had been in the middle of cooking or cleaning when he had been notified of Tioga’s awakening; in fact, the style was so loose that his momentum, throwing himself into the doorway, had sent a few sections slipping from where he’d tied them up and falling around his face, framing it like a golden halo. His storm-gray eyes were wide and already misting. It seemed they always were for one reason or another when he was around them.
He looked like every single one of his dreams had come true in that very moment and he didn’t know how to even begin to handle the exultation of it.
“Tioga,” he cried, breathless.
There was a heartbeat. He was waiting for something. Some acknowledgement. He was restraining himself from rushing into the room based on one question he had, and Tioga for the life of them couldn’t imagine what it would be.
So instead, they said, through the lump of emotion forming in their throat, “Volo!”
This must have answered the question. With a shriek, Volo threw himself across the room and into their arms. The two of them were a mess of limbs. It wasn’t enough to touch each other — only sinking into one another’s bodies would have satisfied this thrill running through both of them. But, barring that possibility, they were left desperately trying to satisfy it like this: with Volo’s hands cupping their face, kissing them over and over; with Tioga kissing him back, their fingers clawing at his shoulder blades, nearly tearing his yukata to shreds; with Volo wrapping his legs around their waist and squeezing tight; with Tioga wrapping him up with their ribbons and never, ever letting go.
Oh. No. Wait. The ribbons were still incorporeal. Damn it.
Still, it was the thought that counted.
They tasted salt on their lips and realized it was coming from both of them.
“I’m so sorry,” they were saying against Volo’s lips, which felt near-permanently glued to their own. (They were quite the fan of this.) “I didn’t know, Dia and Paru said it wasn’t going to— and then I— and I just wanted—”
They couldn’t finish any of these sentences. Their anguish was too great. Their euphoria was too agonizing and too beautiful and too everything all at once and it was so, so transcendent, this rush and capacity of so many emotions. They were drunk on it. To feel the lowest lows and the highest highs and to be able to so clearly feel every single one like a tiny starburst, like a galaxy coming into being inside your soul — this was what their father would never understand. This was the human heart; this, and by extension, Volo, were Tioga’s god.
And that very god was answering them now, except that he refused to stop kissing them over and over, so that every few words were punctuated by it: “Of course — you didn’t know — it’s not your fault — I just — can’t believe — I thought — you weren’t going — to remember me.”
The ending was an arrow in Tioga’s heart. “Wh-What?”
“Oh, Tioga…” — and here he did stop kissing them, just for a moment, though he remained so close they could see themselves reflected in his eyes, and his fingers came up to run through the masses of their hair, trailing along their face, his voice so soft and gentle and delicate it felt sugar-spun, and he was here, he was here, he was here, and they were looking at him, this creature they loved more than anything in the entire universe, and he was theirs , and my god, they couldn’t fathom what they had done to deserve him, to have him here in their lap and so fully and incredibly and wonderfully in love with them the same way they were with him, and it was a dream they would never stop being convinced they would someday wake up from, because there was no possibility they could be this happy every time they set eyes on him — “…you forgot me. Just for a little while.”
But the little while had not been a little while. Tioga could hear it plain as day. They said again, “…what? What are you saying, Volo?”
Because surely they could not have forgotten him, the prism of emotions and desire that was this boy. What he was saying was ridiculous. They must have passed out after killing Carnifex; Volo must have asked the Shattered World to let him out to tend to them. They had been bleeding heavily; that must have been why they didn’t remember the end of the fight. This not-quite-human body they adopted had limitations, albeit much different than regular humans’.
Tioga could see Volo’s heart breaking in his eyes. They knew what that looked like by now; they had been the cause of it many times. But whereas before, it had always been due to tearful anger at their refusal to answer his question, it was now instead a deep sorrow, a navy-blue pain a thousand miles deep.
“To save me, you had to forget me. I was … distracting you.” He looked widely ashamed at this fact. His eyes flicked down to their intertwined hands and stayed there for a long moment. “You told me you were sorry. I saw it … in the Shattered World. Through the water. And then you changed.”
Horror dawned on Tioga’s heart.
No. No, no, no.
No.
“You were in a form I’ve never seen before,” said Volo over the whimpering noise Tioga was beginning to make, high and keening. “And I’ll admit … it scared me.”
Of course it had.
Of course it had .
They fought now, against him. They shoved themselves back in the bed so hard that their spine cracked against the headboard. The entire room became a labyrinth with a despairingly few number of exits. In a panic so great it threatened to swallow them they snapped their head from the doorway ( garchomp and spiritomb are there but i can take them i can take them i WILL destroy them to get out of this house ), to the window (the light the fucking light i’ve never been fucking worthy it has always burned my skin and yet he is consistently bathed in it) to a section of the wall that they could surely crash through to get away from the terror that was gripping them and pulling them down like the hands of the dead dragging them hundreds of miles beneath reality into the river Styx.
They had ruined everything ruined everything ruined everything ruined everything RUINED EVERYTHING,
IRUINEDEVERYTHINGIRUINEDEVERYTHINGIRUINEDEVERYTHINGIRUINEDEVERYTH—
“Tioga,” Volo said with finality.
They were screaming. They could hear it as if they were a third person in the room. It was raw and it burned and Volo’s shoulders were shaking as he cried from the sheer misery of hearing it. He was trying to draw closer to them and they were shoving him away, scrabbling at any control over their consciousness so they would remember to cap their strength at human levels so as not to hurt him.
He hooked one arm around their back and used the other hand to slam their face into his shoulder.
Even that did not dissuade them, at first. They writhed and screamed and wailed and pushed at him, trying everything they could to get away.
But Volo held on as tightly as he could, so tight it felt like his arms would break.
He shouted over their sobs, every word of it a conviction, “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen!”
They stilled suddenly in his arms. Even the way they arrested their movement was violent. Surely they must not have heard him right.
But he was continuing, now, in that same voice, as sure as a brick foundation. “You didn’t know if you were going to forget me forever. You didn’t know if you and Carnifex were going to end up destroying each other. But you did it anyway, because you wanted to make sure I could live in peace, to keep from being hunted by your father. You turned yourself into something that you were terrified of, something that couldn’t even remember how to do anything but kill, because you wanted me to be safe. It was incredible, Tioga! To see that … to see that you were that devoted to me, that you’d risk everything, even my love for you…” He tightened his grip on them again, and they crashed back into that kaleidoscope of emotions, each stronger than the last. “…I’ve never seen anyone do something so brave. Especially not for me.”
They were hiccupping now, but they didn’t move from where he held them. This, here, with him, was home.
Forlornly, they said, “But … but that form … it’s nothing like you.”
Because of course that was what scared them the most. That someone could look at them, unleashed, and then at Volo, and see no common thread between them. Someone knowing that the two of them shared the same heart but then realizing that that was all they shared — it was a nightmare. No — it was worse than a nightmare. It was why they spent so much time in this body and not the one they’d been born with. Because it resembled him. Because it resembled a human, even though they could call all of their godlike strength and abilities at a moment’s notice. Tioga’s hands balled into fists in Volo’s yukata. They were half-stained with the tears and snot they’d left on his shoulder. The imagined situation of someone telling them they were nothing like the person they had been tied to since the beginning of their creation sent them trembling all over again.
Gently, but firmly, Volo said, “I don’t care, Tioga. You’ve never cared that I don’t have any of the powers that you do. Why do you think I would care that you have ones I don’t?”
“I—” But they couldn’t refute this fact. They never would have looked at him differently for being human. They loved it. He wasn’t unfortunately human; he was wonderfully human, with all the wonderful things that entailed.
He broke them apart again and ran his fingers through the stripes of their hair that had gotten wet and tangled, sorting them out. His smile was divinity itself. Tioga felt they ought to be on their knees worshiping it. “And besides,” he said, “you don’t need to be afraid that that form is nothing like me. That’s … not entirely true, anymore.”
Tioga was once again thrown into confusion. They couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was referring to.
But they didn’t have to wait long for their answer. They followed Volo’s gaze down to the hands he’d placed in his lap — the nails were black as night, which would have been unremarkable, except that the tips of his fingers, usually pale, were beginning to take on that same black shade. Just a little, and you could only tell if you focused, and even then it seemed more like a cosmetic choice than a biological one, but it was there nevertheless.
Tioga drew in a breath, quick and sharp. “I— what—”
Volo took a deep breath and then brought one of his hands to his face. Before he could change his mind, he flipped up his lip to reveal his top row of teeth and bared the bottom. The incisors were ever-so-slightly longer than a human’s could physically be. Once again, nothing anyone would be able to pinpoint without extreme focus.
But still.
Volo unwrapped himself from them and turned around on the bed, shouldering off his yukata as he did.
Tioga’s hand flew to their mouth.
Dotting Volo’s back were six splotches of obsidian, evenly placed, three on each side, and each with a sphere of red placed directly in the center. Tioga’s ribbons from their Origin Forme, super-condensed and made two-dimensional. They caught sight of a white-and-gold armband just below each shoulder — reminiscent of the spikes that decorated their body in that form. With a hand beset by tremors, they reached out and slid their fingers along the smooth bumps of his spine, their splayed fingers running over each of the markings.
“Before you start hyperventilating,” Volo said, “don’t.”
“But I—”
“I want this, Tioga!”
At his tone, they immediately went silent.
Volo was looking over his shoulder, but not at Tioga. Rather, his gaze was fixed on the floor beside them.
“You don’t understand, because you’ve been like that your whole life,” he said. The harshness was gone from his voice now; in its place was a tiredness. An exhaustion. A fight he must have anticipated while he rehearsed this conversation in his mind a thousand times. “And you love that I’m human, because you love me, and so it’s inherent, or something. And you don’t want me to change into what you are because you hate when you aren’t the same as me. But don’t you see, Tioga?” And now he was looking at them, with that familiar fire in his eyes, and they were enraptured. “It’s not being Giratina that you’re afraid of. It’s that we’re not the same. And now — now I’m becoming the same as you. And now I—” Here, he stopped for a second; his rehearsed rebuttal was losing over his undistilled feelings. “—now, I don’t know, maybe this is all that happens. Maybe it doesn’t go any farther than this. And then you win, because I stayed human, even though there’s not a single redeeming thing about us. But maybe it does go farther, and I become closer and closer to what you are, and then … then I can protect you. Or at least try to.” He scoffed and dropped his eyes back down to the bed. His hands, on either side of him, were white-knuckled. “Jesus Christ, Tioga. All I’ve ever wanted was to have the power to change things. To protect what was important to me. Can you … can you let me do that, at least? Please…”
“But I’m corrupting—”
“Yeah,” Volo scoffed, “because being blessed by a god and being corrupted are absolutely the same thing.”
For a very long time, the only sound came from the faint birdsong of Starly outside, perched on the tops of trees green enough to dye the light shining in the window with a fraction of their color. Tioga watched Volo’s back rise and fall with his breathing. He was letting them get acclimated. Surely he had known it wouldn’t be easy.
“This change…” they said softly; they didn’t have the confidence yet to speak any louder than that, and their throat still burned from screaming. “…it, uhm, it doesn’t. Happen. So quickly.”
Volo’s shoulders stiffened.
“Was it…”
He was sliding the whole yukata off now, as they spoke, and climbing quickly into bed beside them in his undershirt, as if he couldn’t get under the covers fast enough. Tioga followed suit. Obviously he wanted them under the covers, too, though they couldn’t imagine what was the rush. Once they were lying in each others’ arms, the exhaustion crashed over Tioga. Crying so much had exhausted them in a way they hadn’t realized until they had laid down. Volo was once again running his fingers through their hair, as if coaxing them to sleep.
“…was it, uhm…”
They yawned, hyperaware of the snake-like action of it, how they bared their fangs for a second or two in the middle before closing their mouth again.
“…was it because I … was like that? Did it accelerate the … you know.”
Volo’s eyes were a silent plea. Don’t make me say it.
But Tioga had no idea what it was he didn’t want to say.
“You don’t need to worry about anything,” he said softly. “Everything’s alright now. You can go to sleep … real sleep. And when you wake up, I’ll make you anything you want. You must be ravenous.”
“Okay…” Tioga’s eyes were fluttering closed.
They could see Volo sigh in relief through the thin line of sight they still retained.
Something wasn’t right.
…This house … this isn’t a Jubilife house. More than one room…? The art style on the tapestries … it’s not the same as the artists I know. And no one is interested in those ruins like my Volo. Were they commissioned…? But he’s lying about working for the Ginkgo Guild, so how did he get the money…? And who could he convince to go all the way out there when everyone is so afraid of Pokemon…
…I haven’t seen Togetic. Even though she is always around him. A dragon — famous for its longevity — and a ghost — already dead — were the only ones I saw. Where are the others? Arcanine? Roserade? Lucario…?
…Volo didn’t use to speak like this. I always thought he had such an interesting dialect. He doesn’t quite talk like I do now. I think he’d probably still be confused if I said I was giving him an extra hour in the ball pit or told him about the Toilets With Threatening Auras blog. But he definitely speaks a lot more casually now than he used to. No one else speaks even close to the way I do, so he can’t have gone to a language tutor, and he wouldn’t have, anyway.
So why…
They didn’t open their eyes when they asked the question. It would hurt too much, to see the pain on his face when they asked.
But they had to ask.
“Volo.” Their voice was the faintest of whispers. “How long was I unconscious?”
It was like a gaping hole had opened up in time and space. On the other side of it was the answer that Volo didn’t want to give, but knew he had to. He couldn’t hide it from them, no matter how much it hurt. He loved them too much. He took their hands and brought them up to his lips, where he placed a kiss so diaphanous on their fingers that it nearly didn’t exist at all.
“I’m here,” he murmured into them. “No matter what
happens
next i
promise.
i love you
so much
it ‘ s
been
a h u n d r e d
and
fifty,
y E Ar S