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When Green first meets Red at age eleven, he expects less than nothing from a boy with spiky bangs and a backwards cap whose name he doesn’t know. He’s just withdrawn the Charmander his grandpa gave him when the other boy bursts in, brimming with indignation. Green watches him charge into battle with just a Poliwhirl and an overconfident attitude and watches him sink to his knees when he’s utterly decimated by the tiny pink Pokemon that Green knows they can’t beat.
The kid’s dumb if he can’t see how outclassed he is, Green thinks. He tells him so too, because he at least deserves to know why things went so downhill, then leaves him to let everything sink in.
--
Green can’t remember being this frustrated since he was much smaller, a time before his training with Master Chuck, but he thinks it’s justified when the boy he met a couple days ago is trying to undo a day’s worth of work. His anger goes unnoticed though, and his words die in midair as the other boy runs right up to the Kangaskhan Green’s been trying to catch. He watches in silence as a baby pops its head from its mother’s pouch and the boy pulls out an Antidote, cooing all the while.
Green’s never seen someone be so gentle with a wild Pokemon. The kid isn’t even trying to catch it, even though it’d be one hell of an addition to his lackluster team, and Green finds himself on the outskirts of whatever world the boy is living in.
When the Kangaskhan plods away, its baby healed, Green doesn’t bother trying to go after it. Instead, he crosses his arms and grumbles about his lost chance, but rather than argue back, the other boy just smiles at him. Green feels himself go hot from a mixture of embarrassment and annoyance, and he decides he’s done looking at the boy’s stupid face.
He turns to leave, but the kid runs after him, shouting his own name as if he’s been asked and demanding Green’s name in return. Green tries to ignore him, but he reaches his breaking point and gives up, as long as he can just leave in peace.
And as he goes, Red calls after him, repeating Green’s name over and over, like a promise not to forget him.
--
He comes across Red again not long after, only to find him sitting on the ground, trying to win over the newest addition to his team. Predictably, Green manages to get Red up on his feet, raring for a fight, and although he thinks it’s a shame he won’t actually get to see Red’s determined glare in battle—at least, not yet— he drops his stance.
He issues a different challenge instead, to beat the rock-type Gym and win the Boulder Badge, and even though they’re both fighting someone else, Green knows the competition is between the two of them.
Red accepts the challenge with an angry shout and sputtered curses, just as Green knew he would, and as Green leaves, he wishes Red good luck even though the other boy has no chance of beating him and lets a pamphlet from the Gym float down to land in the grass.
Green makes it to the Gym first, obviously, and he’s already begun to breeze his way through preliminaries when he hears someone shout his name from the audience. He spares a glance over his shoulder and sees Red’s cap and spiky hair before the other boy spins around and runs off as his own block is called.
Who cares, Green thinks as he turns back to the ring, about what Red’s doing, anyway. He needs to focus on himself.
In the end, only he and Red win the Boulder Badge. He’s hardly surprised.
--
The first things Green registers when he wakes up are cold stone against his cheek and Red’s voice in his ear. He pushes himself up into a sitting position, wincing when his head pulses, and through his muddled thoughts, he notices Red, crouched next to him with his hands up like he can’t decide whether or not to touch him.
Green manages to shove his embarrassment down to thank him, because no matter what he’d like to think, he knows he wouldn’t have gotten free without the other boy’s help. Something bristles up inside him when Red blinks like he was expecting to be brushed off ungratefully. But Green can’t leave the fact that he was possessed slide, so he leaves it at that and turns to make his way back up the tower.
Red yelps and chases after him even though he was never asked to come along, and it’s clear he thinks Green is insane, but he doesn’t turn around and leave either. Meanwhile, Green’s furious, furious at whoever had made the Gastly possess him and furious at himself for letting it happen.
It’s only when the enemy’s Arbok lies still, bisected on the ground after chasing them down the tower, that Green stops to take a breath. Red stands quietly behind him, staring at the Arbok’s remains, and for a brief moment, Green anticipates the inevitable argument over his method of saving them.
But Red follows him out without a word, nothing like his usual noise, until they come across Mr. Fuji. Green continues on his way when Red stops to talk to the old man, who thanks him for ridding the tower of ghosts. He doesn’t hear what Red says in response.
--
For once, Green thinks he can empathize with Red’s struggle with his Pikachu when the Porygon he won from the Celadon Game Corner runs off the moment it’s let out of its Pokeball. Green curses and chases after it, and moments later, he collides with someone or something, and he’s on the ground, his Pokemon scattered around him.
In fact, there’s twice the number of Pokeballs on the ground as there should be, because of course it’s Red who’s sitting on his butt, staring back at him. With a flare of embarrassment, Green pushes himself up to recall Porygon and gathers his Pokeballs back up, reattaching them to his belt. He tries to ignore the perplexed stare Red levels at his back when he leaves.
It’s only when he lets his Pokemon out to train that he realizes the Pokeballs he thought were his aren’t actually his. He’s somehow managed to end up with half the amount of Pokemon he should’ve had— had Red been carrying three empty Pokeballs? — and they’re all Red’s.
He stares at the unfamiliar line-up, closes his eyes, and decides that if he’s going to be stuck with this team, he’ll have to train them up. He refuses to treat Red’s Pokemon any differently than he would his own, and besides, they could use some competent training.
Red doesn’t really return the favor, and all Green gets are a Ninetales, a newly-evolved Machamp, and a bunch of cuddly Pokemon in return for the whole mess. As he fumes, surveying the idiot’s lack of progress, Porygon nuzzles up to him like a doting housepet.
He sighs and pats it on the head once. Then he does it to all his other Pokemon, and their coos make him feel a little guilty. Maybe Red has a point after all.
--
At this point, he should just expect to see his new rival everywhere, Green thinks as he touches down in front of what used to be his grandpa’s lab. Red runs toward him, and Green tells him about the psychic barrier and the Team Rocket members stationed in Saffron City.
But unlike Red, Green isn’t doing this to be a hero; no, he just wants Team Rocket away from his town and his grandpa, and that’s what he says to an angry Red before hopping onto Charizard to chart a course back.
He tells Red to stay away, in some impossible hope that he’ll actually listen for once, but minutes later, he sees the other boy up in the air next to him, and for some reason, Red looks more surprised to see Green when it really should be the other way around.
Green gives up on yelling at him, turning his attention to the barrier instead, and only when a girl—the same girl he saw dangling off the foot of her floating Jigglypuff earlier—laughs at them does he let his shoulders drop as he surveys the work of his Golduck and Red’s Pikachu. The actual Pikachu nestles in Red’s arms as the substitute runs around the city, and Green can’t help but notice how far it’s come from being the prickly rodent that turned its nose up at its trainer.
(He doesn’t have room to talk, though. He’s been spoiling Charizard too much lately.)
Before the barrier has even finished dissolving, he bolts, ignoring Red’s calls behind him. When they get inside the building, not even the blood rushing to Green’s head can mask Red’s yell, and he turns just in time to see Red plummet through a trapdoor.
He has no idea what he would have done, whether he would have grabbed Red’s hand or jumped down after him, but he finds that he doesn’t even have time to think about that when a throwing star nearly pins his foot to the ground.
Green looks back to see Koga, and he doesn’t realize his mistake until it’s too late and Scyther already has one blade encased by a Grimer on Koga’s shoulder. As he reaches for another Pokeball, he doesn’t even notice that the Grimer has moved until it looms up behind him and wraps around his arm first, then the rest of him, pinning his arms to his side and covering his mouth. He wants so badly to cringe away from the sludge curling around him, hardly letting him breathe, but there’s nowhere to go.
Koga makes sure Green has a clear view of the screen in his Golbat’s mouth, of Red writhing as electricity courses through him, and Green feels his heart tighten in his chest. He makes another attempt to slide out a Pokeball, but the Grimer easily wrenches his wrist away from his belt.
Green’s given an ultimatum: to get his grandpa to join Team Rocket or to die. He says no to either option, because both of them are betrayals in their own way, and the instant after Scyther leaps at Koga and is knocked away, Green slumps to the floor.
If he had been any unluckier, the Razor Wind probably would have killed him. It hurts, but his pendant takes the brunt of the damage, and it lies cracked next to him, still attached to its string. He’s going to have to wait for Koga to get distracted, he thinks, in whatever form that may come. And he knows that distraction is going to come if Red bursts up from the stairway—because as much as the rational majority of him insists that both of them are in over their heads, he refuses to believe that Red could possibly die like this—but part of him prays that Red won’t have to find him like this or face Koga and almost get killed again.
Green gets his wish, or he doesn’t, because Red does come running up the stairs, and the first thing he does is call Green’s name and send out his ever-faithful Poliwrath, now, to stop Koga’s Golbat from attacking Green, who wishes he could tell the idiot to worry about himself.
Even when Red is held aloft by the Grimer, he still shouts and flails, begging for Green to wake up before his head gets sliced off, and Green almost feels bad for making him worry this much. Red stills when it turns out Green actually isn’t unconscious, but even when he becomes the one threatened with imminent death, he doesn’t freeze up until he sees Articuno, and for a moment, Green wonders why Red feels the need to care about everyone and everything except himself.
They both live more than long enough for Green to ask, but he doesn’t, and when Red starts getting hissy with him again, he gladly slips back into the role of a rival, even when they join up with Blue and take down the fusion of Kanto’s legendary birds together.
It’s the best they can do for each other at the moment.
--
There’s no quota in the world on stubborn, passionate idiots, Green finds when he meets a kid who demands to have the Lapras Green has just caught.
It’s the second stage, where angry shouts become pleas, that makes Green get down at eye-level with the kid and explain that he has to catch it himself—he’s learned his own lesson of just being given new Pokemon with his Porygon—but when it turns out the kid wants the Lapras so he can rescue his Haunter from the power plant it disappeared into, Green realizes he really has no choice but to investigate. Once again, he finds himself with a talkative tail, and it’s almost concerning how used to it he’s gotten.
Soon enough, though, he finds that it’s not quite fair to compare this kid, Bozz, to Red, not when Red is an actual trainer and Bozz just wants to get his only Pokemon back. Green guides him through, and the farther they get, the less sure he is that Bozz will actually be able to rescue his Pokemon on his own.
But he’ll make sure of it, even when the kid’s left alone against Agatha while Green’s trapped by her Gengar’s Dream Eater. It’s the only chance for both of them to make it out alive anyway, and in between bouts of sleep and pain, he manages to contact Bozz through Green’s dropped Pokedex and his Golduck, and for the first time, it’s himself he sees in the kid instead.
--
He and Red see each other at the Indigo League like they promised. This time, Green spots the spiky hair and backward cap first, and this time, Red returns the smirk back up.
As Green’s announced the winner of his block, he hops down from the ring to join Red. All the other boy does is blink in surprise, so Green has to fill the silence, and it ends in yet another promise, one to meet in the finals.
They do manage to face each other in the finals, but it has nothing to do with the luck of the bracket. Green can’t deny to himself the way his heart lifts when his grandpa says that he’s dropping out, even after defeating Blue, that it’s just Green and Red left in the finals. He’s sure Red feels it too, because when they’re both up on the stage, there’s already a look of triumph in his eye, like he’s already won something, but there’s none of that arrogance from the day he raced in against the phantom Pokemon without a single strategy.
Green’s sure he’ll never forget the adrenaline exploding through him like a firework, the shared half-smiles from across the ring, or the use of the lessons they’ve both learned, but the memory he knows will haunt his dreams is the look in Red’s eye as he orders his Pikachu’s final strike with his makeshift lightning rod.
And somehow, Green can’t find it in himself to be disappointed even as he collapses, not when it’s Red on the other side of a battle like that.
--
Red tells him about his battle with Giovanni, outlining every move in so much detail that Green doesn’t think either of them will ever forget, and despite the odds of an eleven year old kid against the leader of Team Rocket, Green isn’t surprised that Red was the one that reigned victorious. Small tendrils of pride curl in his chest as he listens.
He can’t say for sure when he began to trust Red and his ingenious, on-the-fly ploys. He’s less bothered by the development than he expects.
--
He doesn’t see Red or Blue for a long time afterwards. While Red stays in Pallet Town to take challenges as the tournament champion and Blue goes off to do who-knows-what, Green leaves to continue his training—to keep up with Red, he doesn’t say, but Blue’s infuriating smirk tells him she knows. Most of the time, he’s able to stop himself from missing home—Pallet Town, his grandpa, Red, even Blue as time goes on—but some nights, when he has only his Pokemon and a few scattered dreams for company, they’re all he can think about.
It’s two years in when he gets a letter from his grandpa telling him to come back. It brings him up to speed, although there isn’t much—only that Red has gone missing, that his Pikachu was the only one of his team to make it back, and that a boy has taken him under his care.
His blood goes cold. Red has to be alive. The Pokemon League Champion doesn’t go down that easily. (Except he’s only thirteen, and thirteen year olds do.)
Green arrives in Celadon just in time to see a kid with a straw hat and a familiar-looking Pikachu save a Caterpie at the expense of neglecting the enemy’s Gastly. Green figures he’s the one his grandpa was talking about, despite a nagging instinct that something doesn’t add up.
He really can’t help but lecture the kid—whose name is Yellow, what a coincidence—afterwards because he can’t stop following the if-Red-were-here train of thought and because Yellow needs to know what even Red couldn’t beat.
So when Yellow asks to come with him to train, to do anything to save Red, Green can’t exactly say no.
--
If he thought Red was kind and naive, Yellow turns out to be on an entirely different level. Green isn’t much of a hands-on teacher, isn’t much of a teacher at all, and when he comes back to get Yellow at the end of the day, he finds him more beaten up than the Caterpie he’s supposed to have caught earlier in the morning.
Green can feel himself growing more and more flustered as Yellow reveals more and more of what he doesn’t know, and he’s really beginning to reconsider all his decisions that have led to meeting people like Red and Bozz and Yellow, who’ve dragged him into caring this much.
He has to coach Yellow through, step by step, until the Caterpie’s secure in the Pokeball, but when he thinks that’s all there is to do for today, Yellow’s Rattata evolves, and Green huffs in relief, glad that they’ve accomplished something more than just catching a Caterpie.
Yellow bursts into tears and falls asleep about a minute later.
He needs to reconsider his plan, Green thinks after he throws a brief fit of his own, if he wants to train Yellow effectively, if at all. He makes a list of what he knows: Yellow doesn’t know how to capture, battle, or evolve Pokemon; he’ll do what seems like anything to save them; he has Red’s Pikachu’s trust; he can supposedly heal Pokemon; and…
Green pauses, thinking back over the day’s events, and it dawns upon him that Yellow’s a girl, not a boy like his grandpa had said, but the thought is less surprising than he expects it to be, and it hardly changes things, anyway. She must have some potential no one else does, otherwise Pikachu wouldn’t have bothered with her, and Green’s starting to feel like he owes it to her to help her grow into the best trainer she can be, even if that means letting her do some things her own way, like not evolving her Pokemon.
And if they can save Red in the process, well, that’s just an added bonus.
--
When he hears about the ice sculpture—or maybe mold would be a more accurate description—of Red that Brock found on Mount Moon, Green feels as if all of the air in his lungs has been forcibly dragged out by one painful image.
He isn’t there to see it in person, and he’s sure he never will be, but he can still picture Red, ice encasing his body for the second time, screwed over by trainers he never learned to distrust.
Red himself is gone from the ice, and Green doesn’t know what to make of that. He was either rescued or already dead, and there’s no guarantee that whoever freed him actually saved him.
Green wonders if Red had been prepared to die alone in his last moments of consciousness.
The thought makes him so mad that he thinks about punching Red when (if) he sees him again.
--
Green doesn’t realize how much Red and Yellow have rubbed off on him until he finds himself with his eyes paralyzed shut, cradling Koga’s Golbat in his arms. Agatha laughs at him, parroting words he distinctly remembers saying in the past himself, but at this point, the damage is done.
He grimaces when Agatha’s Golbat comes for them, and, not for the first time, he’s grateful for all of the awareness training he’s underwent since he first started with Master Chuck. He pats around his pockets and belt, heart sinking when he realizes any supplies he might’ve had are all gone.
Damn it all. He doesn’t regret a thing.
--
It feels like Green’s seeing Red properly for the first time when the tunnel he’s following merges into an opening. Blue’s there too, looking the same as she did when they parted ways, if a bit older, prettier—though Green would never say it to her face—and the nostalgia hits him hard enough that, for a moment, he forgets about her terrible personality.
But his attention is eaten up by Red, who’s changed even less, despite everything he’s gone through. He’s just a bit taller with a bit less baby fat, and he still wears his cap precariously balanced against his hair, but when Green sees him, his heart inexplicably skips a beat in a way it never has before, out of relief—it has to be relief, it can’t be anything else—to see his rival still alive. He can almost ignore how Red doesn’t quite manage to grip his bike’s handles the way he wants them to.
They’re all surprisingly awkward in their greetings. They don’t know what to address aside from the fact that Red is alive and here, and Green feels like Red will disappear if he’s ever out of sight.
But once they’re in battle, the three of them slot back together just as seamlessly as they did in Saffron City, against Team Rocket, as if they hadn’t been separated for two years, except this time, they’re all here to support Yellow, who flits around overhead with her newly evolved Pokemon. Green can’t deny the bubble of pride that wells up inside him when she and Pikachu unleash an attack powerful enough to bring Lance down and a wave of warmth spreads across the sky, a blanket unfolding in the air to drift down to the ground.
Red, reliable as always, flies up on his Aerodactyl to pluck Yellow from her Butterfree, and the move is so reasonable and gentle and soft, all the way from Aerodactyl to Gyarados, and, ah, maybe pride isn’t the only thing welling up inside.
--
He has the year to sort his emotions out, but he tries to do that as little as possible because he really doesn’t want this thing to mean what he thinks it means. He’ll get over it, he tells himself, because if he doesn’t, he’s utterly screwed. He’ll only dig himself deeper if he spends too much time thinking about it.
Besides, there are other things, more important things, to be done. He knows that Red still hasn’t recovered from being frozen and that he’s aiming to become Viridian City’s Gym Leader. Red doesn’t tell him anything about his injuries, covering them up with his goals, and it’s almost offensive that he thinks Green doesn’t notice.
What Green doesn’t tell Red either is that he’s been researching a cure for the numbness that Red’s been trying to downplay for the past year or so. He knows Red’s searching too, but he also needs to split his time with training, trying to climb back up to the level he rested at so easily before.
Green gets an answer from Sabrina, the only other person he knows to have been frozen as well. She’s under no obligation to help him, but she tells him about a hot spring up on Mount Silver that she’s been frequenting. Green hates the way she smirks as if she knows something no one else does, but she doesn’t seem to be lying, so he’ll take what he can get.
He shows up to Red’s aptitude test for the Viridian Gym partly to tell him about the cure, but also partly to watch. The test starts smoothly, but it’s obvious when Red starts to struggle. He manages to pull through—he wouldn’t be Red if he didn’t—but Green can tell that he has to push past his limits. It’s almost a relief when Red declines the offer he won less than a minute ago.
Green makes a beeline for him, ignoring the started yelps from the audience, and grabs his wrist. He instantly regrets it when Red winces, but he pushes the guilt down. He’s trying to prove a point, one that Red knows fully well, written across his face in disappointment.
The chairman interrupts whatever kind of moment they’re having, running over as he yells that Green can’t become a gym leader without taking the test. Green wasn’t planning on it, not when it’s been Red’s dream for years, but the bit of him full of irrational pride twinges at the rejection.
But before he can explain, the building shakes, and he and Red fall back into their old routine of heading straight for the source. It’s nearly underwhelming compared to what they’ve been up against before, but it’s still a horde of wild Pokemon dangerously close to an area full of people, so neither of them let their guard down. Green puts Red on guard duty at the back, and once he’s sure he won’t be getting any complaints, he lets Scizor at it.
The cheers from the gathering crowd when they realize he’s Professor Oak’s grandson don’t leave the same bitter taste in his mouth as they would have years ago, but he doesn’t embrace them either. He’s ready give Red the information and leave before he hears his rival tell the chairman, voice brimming with unsubtle hints, that Green had gotten second place in the Indigo League Championship.
Second place is hardly first, but the way Red says it with such pride in his voice causes heat to start creeping up Green’s face. He doesn’t know if he’d like to punch or hug Red right now, and that’s a scary thought he doesn’t want to entertain in front of an audience that includes Red himself, so he whips Charizard’s Pokeball to him and tells him to ask Daisy for details.
When he gets the notice that he’s the new Viridian Gym Leader, he wonders if the right thing to do is transfer it back to Red as soon as he’s healed. But until then, he decides, he’ll put the Pokemon he caught to use. He refuses to half-ass any job he’s given.
--
He isn’t the only new Gym Leader in Kanto. Janine takes over her father’s Gym, and just like Green, she isn’t sure what she’ll do when Koga comes back. If he comes back. At least Green has the certainty.
He doesn’t offer what he might know about her father’s whereabouts, where he’d last seen him, what might or might not have happened to him. She doesn’t ask.
The only reason they’re both here is to fill a spot. Neither of them minds.
--
For a second, Green considers blaming this whole ordeal on Red for offering him up as a Gym Leader. But no, he decides, kicking a Team Rocket member in the chest, it’s better that he can help out this way. Team Rocket’s different this time; all of the members are masked, and they seem to move more mindlessly, like they have to move as a unit.
An alarm goes off when the last car of the train breaks loose. Green races to the controls to see what’s happened, and he finds that the cars with him and most of the other Gym Leaders are picking up speed. There’s a breath of relief when the breaks come back online, but the moment doesn’t last long when Erika notices that they’re headed for a dead end, too close for the train to stop in time.
Green fumbles with controls that he knows won’t be of any use, with Erika and Brock standing behind him, just as desperate and clueless as he is, and it’s when they’re less than a minute away from crashing—away from dying—that he realizes there’s really nothing they can do about it.
The three of them can’t drag themselves away from the front of the train. Green braces himself mentally in some strange mix of denial and acceptance—there’s so much he still needs to do—and then he sees a figure ahead of them in the distance, and there isn’t enough time for his brain to process it before a Snorlax catches the train, slamming into it and digging its heels into the ground hard enough to lessen the impact with the barrier.
Green picks himself up from where he’s toppled over the controls, and when he looks out the window to see what happened, he sees Red.
The first thought that runs through his mind is, Way to make an entrance, followed by, He saved us.
Then it hits him that Red’s truly here, not on Mount Silver, and Green’s at the door in an instant, his entire body still pulsing with adrenaline, and when Red waves at him, he sprints down the platform to reach him. Green doesn’t really know what he wants to do, if he should go for a high-five, or maybe a hug, but in the end, he forces himself to stand back and take it all in.
The idiot apologizes for being late, as if he hasn’t just saved all of their lives, and there’s a confident light in his eye that Green hasn’t seen in three years, since Red won the tournament, and he wants nothing more than to grab him by the shoulders and—
Oh, Green realizes, there it is. There were signs, sure, signs he didn’t want to think about, but they’ve crept up on him too slowly for him to label them, and now it’s like he’s been dunked underwater, the same way he was when he first started training with Chuck. This time, the water comes in the form of bright red eyes and a heart of gold, and still, Green can hardly breathe.
So, he’s fourteen and in love with his rival and best friend. He can think of worse things that could happen.
--
Fighting on the backs of Kanto’s legendary birds makes for another fitting reunion, but it doesn’t end there.
Green dismounts from Zapdos as Ho-Oh and Lugia disappear from sight, and he still hasn’t torn his gaze away when Red tosses a Pokeball at him. It’s Charizard, large and warm as ever, and when Red and Blue have Venusaur and Blastoise out and ready, they head in to look for Celebi’s shrine.
Instead of the shrine, they find the Mahogany Gym Leader—Pryce, if Green remembers correctly—sitting on a warped body of ice, and more people burst in until it’s six of them, Yellow and two younger, unfamiliar kids, that form a line across from him.
It’s definitely strange fighting alongside this many people, but if that’s what it takes, then Green can’t complain. It’s not enough, and even Charizard falls against the ice figures that Pryce creates. Green kicks at one of the figures as it grabs his arms, but it doesn’t flinch or crack under his boot.
Everyone around him is still struggling to break free when the shrine’s doors burst open and Celebi streams out. Pryce catches it immediately, and as time begins to turn back, the temperature drops in tandem. Green can feel the ice around his wrist and at his back frost over and thicken, and he can’t help but worry for Red, who has just barely recovered from being frozen before.
Pryce leaves them with a boy named Gold, who’s frozen into a wall of ice, someone the other two Pokedex holders seem to know. They cry out and run to him, freed from their ice prisons, and both Yellow and Gold seem to come to the same realization.
Yellow reaches up to tug at the feathers in her hat, but they don’t budge, sliding through her fist instead. Green doesn’t quite understand why she’s still trying to hide her gender at this point—her battle against Lance is long over—but he follows her panicked gaze and groans, because of course Red doesn’t know.
She finally takes the hat off, a blush dusted across her face, and Red shuts down. Gold pops out of the ice, an explosion of sound in an awkward silence, and Green hopes Blue regrets putting them all in this situation. (When he looks at her, he thinks she might.)
While the Johto kids are gone, all Red can seem to do is sputter while Yellow makes a weak attempt to hide her ponytail from view. It’s painful, even not taking into account the way Green’s chest feels like it’s caving in on itself, and he hates himself for it because he knows he shouldn’t have expected anything else.
He feels a little better when Misty calls later, maybe because she has it even worse than he and Yellow combined. Red’s obviously out of his element, standing there dumbly with the Pokegear held up to his mouth, while Yellow sidles in, trying to listen in on what seems to be a one-sided conversation. It’s painful, but at least he’s not the only one.
--
Of course, Blue notices, and it's a testament to how hopeless it all is that she actually doesn’t tease him for once. Green would rather die than bring it up, but sometimes, when it’s just the two of them, which isn’t very often but is starting to become a more frequent occurrence, she asks about Red and what he’s been doing, as if she doesn’t know. Green ends up kicking her out of the Gym most days, but when he’s tired or feeling marginally more appreciative, he lets her pity him, just a little.
When Red comes back from Mount Silver, he spends a lot of time in Viridian between visiting Green at the Gym and Yellow in the forest. Green asks Red if he wants another shot at being Gym Leader, and he doesn’t think Red has ever been quicker to say no in his life. So instead, he makes a routine of pointing out all the work he has to do and asking Red if he has anyone else to bother, but he still settles into himself more easily every time Red laughs and refuses to budge from wherever he’s lounging around.
With each visit, the thing clamping around his heart becomes more aware of Red, the easy curve of his smile, the emotion reflected in his eyes, the warmth of his arm around Green’s shoulders every time he decides to peek over at the paperwork or bring him into a conversation. He catches Green staring, sometimes, and makes a face or winks in response, and Green always has to turn around so Red doesn’t see the blush creep across his cheeks.
He should talk to Yellow about whatever this is. She pays him the occasional visit, and he helps her continue her training. She lets her Pikachu run around, shy and playful with a flower tucked in her fur, and Green wonders if she’s meant to fill the hole left in her team until he realizes neither Yellow nor the Pikachu has much interest in fighting.
They have a somewhat unspoken agreement to never talk about Red, but it’s obvious when he’s visited recently because she’s always a little more excited, always a little more flushed. Green clears out a day to see her, rehearses the way he’ll tell her that Red’s too much of an oblivious idiot to notice on his own, that she should say something, because there’s no way he’ll turn someone as kind and as loving as her down.
But then Red drops by the day before, bringing with him another afternoon of warm touches and his too-big heart, and Green turns his visit to Yellow into a drawing lesson instead.
--
Pallet Town is just as they remember it. When Red lags a bit to help a kid catch a Nidorino, nostalgia is scrawled across his face, like he’s watching another scene overlay this one. Green can’t say he sees the same thing Red does, a group of children racing around with their first Pokemon; his grandpa’s lab was a more familiar sight, but Pallet Town is both of their homes all the same.
Even as Green snipes at Red’s disregard for punctuality, he can’t deny the swell of affection that surfaces when Red waves goodbye to the kids. They’ve gotten good at casual conversation in a way they couldn’t have when they were eleven, or even thirteen, too focused on beating each other to let go of the tension.
Neither of them expects Professor Oak to ask for their Pokedexes back. Red hesitates, stuck in a mixture of confusion and disbelief, but Green spins on his heel and walks back into the lab. He trusts his grandpa, trusts him enough to take away the device that’s saved his life so many times, and Red evidently feels the same way because he follows, and the two of them watch as their Pokedexes disappear into the system.
--
The moment they land in Vermillion, they get swept up onto a ship that leaves the port only a minute later, and there’s nothing left for them to do except wait. Red plops down on a bench, staring at the Tri-Pass like it’ll reveal the answers to his questions if he looks hard enough, so Green joins him, leaving enough space for a third person between them.
Red doesn’t even twitch, concentration knitting his brow, and Green knows that unless he wants to explore the ship on his own, he’ll have to wait for Red to be satisfied with whatever knowledge he has or doesn’t have. He doesn’t have to wait very long, though, because Bill stumbles upon them. Daisy’s not with him, to Green’s relief, because being in love apparently makes her a self-proclaimed expert on the subject, and he’s not sure he can handle dodging her nudges and knowing looks with Red in the vicinity.
A voice over the intercom announces their arrival at One Island, but before they disembark, Red spots Blue on a deck below, flailing at seemingly nothing. They leap over the railing just in time to see a couple disappear through the ground as a silent, choked scream refuses to escape her. She falls to her knees like a dropped marionette, and all Green can do is watch as she staggers back up and faints over the side of the ship.
Red’s reflexes are as fast as always, and he sends Poliwrath out to catch Blue before she can hit the ground. When Red and Bill run down to retrieve her, Green can still sense a presence on the deck, unmoving but still noticeably there. Scizor’s out in less than a second and clamps down on whatever is there, but the enemy disappears, as if it’s dissolved.
When Green stalls, searching and processing, Red calls up to him with Blue in his arms, so he files what he doesn’t know away to think about later, picks up the remnants of Blue’s Silph Scope, and sprints down to catch up.
--
They learn that it was Blue’s parents they saw disappear on the ship, and they ache for her when she’s too busy being unconscious to continue grieving on her own. Pain solidifies into resolution, and they don’t even need to look at each other to decide what to do. (But they do anyway, because Green is a fool with rapidly deteriorating impulse control when it comes to Red.
Red peels himself away from the footage of an unfamiliar figure with arms like whips, and despite himself, despite the situation, Green can’t help but think about how well Red wears determination, how natural declarations sound in his voice, even when he admits he doesn’t know how he’s going to do it.
But it’s fine, Green thinks, because that’s why he’s here, so that instead of having Red face the impossible on his own like last time, it’s the two of them fighting for a friend who’s had her dreams torn into pieces and dissolved on the ship’s deck.
They have to get stronger, both of them know, but before they can list out their options, an old lady jumps out of nowhere, yelling at them, and now all Green can think about is the impending headache.
--
He doesn’t have time for this.
But apparently it’s not up to him, because twin bracelets attach themselves over his and Red’s wristbands, and he’s so fed up that he actually goes and tries to knock her out. A thought buried deep in the back of his mind tells him it’s not a good idea, but he finds that he doesn’t care until the old lady sends out a Typhlosion and Meganium and blasts a hole through the wall behind him.
Bill also builds up some credibility for the lady, whose name is apparently Kimberly, and, fine, Green knows it’s the best bet they have, but he can’t get over the way the bracelet slides around his wrist like a cuff binding him to something he knows nothing about. When he looks over at Red, though, the other boy’s fidgeting with his own bracelet, guilty smile in place, and Green knows he’s not getting any help from him.
With a huff, he grabs Red’s hand, tries to ignore how warm and clueless it feels in his own, pulls at him without looking back, but they don’t get very far, only a few meters, before their bracelets refuse to let them go any farther. Green curses, pulling against the resistance, and he’s about to turn back on Kimberly when Red throws an arm out, hand smacking firmly against Green’s chest.
Green can only watch as Red—and since when had Red become the voice of reason?—just about begs the old woman to help them, the resolve in his voice never once wavering, and that seems to be all she’s looking for.
All too soon, they’re sitting on another ship, but this time, Green’s restless. Red faces his irritation with nothing but confusion, close enough for Green to count every question in the crimson specks in his eyes. Five years hasn’t even begun to dent Red’s trust in people, not even after being lured out by the Elite Four and left to die. More than anything, Red seems surprised that Green suspects Kimberly at all, but before either of them can convince each other, they reach Two Island, and Green can only hope that Red is right about all this.
--
By the end of the second stage, Green’s less worried about the credibility of this training and more concerned about whether Red’s going to make it to the end. When Red drops to his hands and knees, Green has to help him up, sliding one of Red’s arms around himself and letting most of the weight rest against him, and at this point, he just hopes Red doesn’t pass out.
When he reads the name of the next path, Red shifts next to him, and Green unconsciously pulls him closer, but that turns out to be a mistake when he turns to look at him and ends up nearly nose to nose with his best friend, his hair brushing the side of Red’s head, and Green can’t tell if he’s frozen because he’s just learned that only one of them can learn the ultimate skill or because this feels like the first time Red has ever looked at him this closely.
The moment doesn’t last long. Kimberly shoves them through the door, and from that point on, it’s a two-on-two battle. They both know that the logical thing to do is take the easy way out, avoid exhausting their teams, but excitement is soaring through Green’s veins at the prospect of properly facing Red in a high-stakes battle for the first time since the Indigo League, and he knows Red’s thinking the same thing. There’s really no other option.
Of course, both of their Pokemon end up learning the ultimate skill while Green and Red themselves get choked out by Blue’s Ditto. Green shouldn’t have underestimated either of them.
When the bracelets have snapped off and clattered to the floor, Red winds a hand through Green’s hair and shoves him to his knees alongside himself to thank the old woman. Even though his knees sting like hell (Red really didn’t hold back much), Green lets himself relish the touch.
--
Lorelei’s offer to ally with them should have been the biggest surprise of the day—Green’s still not sure how Red can pretend she never froze him and threw his dreams off-track—but an attack from a small man in a mech only moments later sure as hell tops it all off. Two other Rocket officials join him, and Red works himself into a rage as he lists their every offense, shaking until he’s sick of asking questions he isn’t getting the answers to. It’s the angriest Green’s ever seen him, and he barely has time to blink before Red breaks free from the mechanical claw they’re trapped by and launches himself at the enemy.
Green curses at him internally as the nearest Forretress explodes, and it’s only thanks to Lorelei that he can continue to do so with Red once again draped over him but still alive. Aside from a quiet groan, Red doesn’t even seem to notice when he’s transferred from Green’s shoulder to Lorelei’s bed, but before Green can check how badly he’s wounded, the television flickers on.
The announcement isn’t surprising so much in its content as in the power it implies Team Rocket holds, enough to broadcast the message across the islands and confidently make its promise.
They uphold that promise well enough that the island starts shaking before the broadcast has even ended. Green dashes to the window, Bill and Lorelei close behind, and they watch as the islands begin to crumble.
Green knows he’s going to go to them, never had any doubt about it, but when he turns to head for the door, Red groans as he pushes himself to sit up, and concern manages to widen the cracks in Green’s resolve. Red has definitely seen better days, seeing as it takes him a good few seconds to stand up, but his injuries don’t wipe off that stubborn look Green knows far too well.
He watches Red lift off with his Aerodactyl, heading toward the Rocket member with the exploding Forretress. He isn’t worried, not when he knows what Red can do in a trainer battle with a clear head, not when he can’t afford to entertain the thought of what might happen if Red—if any of them—loses.
The Shuckle that swarm over Green and his Pokemon bring him back to the unpleasant experience of being covered with toxic Pokemon once again, and he feels eleven again in his struggle to break free, except this time, there’s so much more contact against bare skin and he knows he can’t count on Red for another distraction.
He experiences a brief moment of déjà vu when Orm sets a screen in front of him. On the other hand, the rant about family is a new one, but when it displays footage of his grandpa, wounded and shackled in a presentation just for Green, a confirmation of the thought he’s been trying to hard to push away, he decides he won’t, he can’t, let his limits get in the way.
--
So much of Green’s thought is focused on finding his grandpa that he doesn’t even realize he’s been knocked off Charizard until he’s in complete freefall. He sits up to see Blue and Kimberly running toward him, face burning in humiliation as he shrugs off their concern, but his head clears when he looks up and spies the mystery Pokemon overhead in yet another form they know nothing about.
Green realizes all this and more, how strong whatever they’re up against is, but still nothing in the world can prepare him for the sight of all of Red’s Pokemon sprawled out on the island, Red himself on his knees. It reminds Green of their first meeting, Red on the ground by his downed Pokemon, but this time there’s no urging for his Pokemon to get back up and fight or disbelief that he lost.
Acceptance bleeds through the shaky smile he offers everyone, and to Green, that’s the scariest part.
--
While the rest of them try to unpack what they know about Team Rocket and Deoxys, Red sits next to Bill, slumped over and unresponsive as if he’s in a separate dimension. He hasn’t looked up once.
Green chalks it up to exhaustion and disappointment, but he’s sure Red will bounce back because he’s never done any differently, even when he wasn’t surrounded by friends to help him out. Now that Blue’s here with them, there’s no way they won’t find some way to save their families and beat Deoxys and Team Rocket.
And for once, Red doesn’t share his excitement. Green’s starting to put a plan together, confident that they’re finally getting somewhere, but when he voices it aloud, he doesn’t find the surge of energy he’s expecting. Red stays silent, his glare still fixed on the ground. Green touches his shoulder, trying to rouse him because he’s sure Red has experienced more devastating losses.
He’s completely unprepared for Red to smack his hand away, an angry snarl twisting the usual upturn of his mouth.
And before he realizes it, he’s up on his feet, dragging Red with him by the collar, and the world has been narrowed down to the way Red won’t meet his eyes and the buzz of what the hell is he saying echoing inside his skull.
It isn’t like Red to give up without even trying. Yet, here he is, trying to run away when Green’s grandpa and Blue’s parents have all been captured by Team Rocket, when the best thing to do, the only thing to do, is to fight.
And maybe because he can’t comprehend any Pokemon stronger than the three of them—hell, even a fusion of three legendary Pokemon was beatable at age eleven—Green reaches out one more time as Red wrenches himself away, but it’s no use; Red still won’t look at him. Green’s anger spikes, but it sputters into frustration as Red spills over the edge with his guilt and insecurities, and even though Green trusts his grandpa with his life and more, he wonders if maybe they shouldn’t have turned in their Pokedexes.
Red visibly oscillates between acceptance and anger before he bolts into the darkness, Blue close behind. Forget about those two, Green tells the rest of the group even though he knows better than anyone that they’re all screwed without them. But even if they give up, he can’t, not when he needs to prove to Red that they aren’t worthless, not when it’s about family and he and his grandpa have been used as leverage for each other so many times. He’s known firsthand since he was eleven how dangerous it is to be a trainer, but it’s a personal betrayal if he doesn’t see things through to the end.
--
With the remaining brainpower that he can’t really afford to spare, Green notices Red drifting around, looking more lost than he’s ever been, before disappearing to who-knows-where. He frowns at the thought, but he doesn’t get to follow that train of thought for much longer when he spots yet another flaw in their plan.
He manages to keep his mind off of Red for a while until he and the sailor he’s been working with find a cluster of Unown wrapped around the ship’s propellor. They’re going to need a ton of power and sharp enough accuracy to avoid breaking the ship, and it turns out to be perfect timing when Blue masters her version of the ultimate skill, much more quickly than Green and Red did.
But Green’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when they might be able to use it to solve their problem. Even though she’s mastered the skill only minutes ago, she’s confident, and he trusts her far more than he’ll ever say out loud.
Even with Charizard and Blastoise’s ultimate attacks, the Unown continue to cling on. Green and Blue exchange a look, and they’re about to call it off and think of another way when Red shouts out from behind them and lets Venusaur at it.
It’s almost ridiculous how quickly the Unown peel away like plastic wrapping. As they float off, Green turns around to properly look at Red, gauge whatever he might be feeling, and the weight of the islands is lifted off his shoulders when all he sees is the confident smile that so many (too many) people have fallen in love with.
It’s probably more surprising when he and Blue turn and find themselves face-to-face with Mewtwo. It doesn’t look all that happy to see them either, but at least it’s less surprised.
--
At the end of the day, everything is about Red. Red, whom Mewtwo willingly seeks out and trusts, who’s going to be the one to escape this mess of a tower and fight Giovanni and Deoxys again, who can’t go two years without getting swept up in something. Maybe it comes with being the Champion. Maybe it’s just because he’s Red, sticking his too-earnest nose in any problem he can find.
And he’s as magnetic as ever, even when he’s struggling through a mob of Deoxys clones. Just a bit. Green’s not distracted, not really, but occasionally he turns to the perfect angle and is reminded of all the different reasons why everyone, humans and Pokemon alike, loves Red so much.
All things considered, it’s remarkably easy to come up with a plan. It’ll be harder to execute. He pushes down whatever feelings of intimidation he has and asks Mewtwo to trust him.
Mewtwo listens to him. Green wonders if it’s because he’s doing this for Red.
He and Saur just barely make it down before the building’s top floor gets sliced off, more of a fall than a leap. Green doesn’t have the energy to make it back onto his feet as he searches for Red and Charizard in the sky. He sees them hesitate for a second before taking off.
He wants to hate them for looking back. (He could never.)
--
The airship is minutes away from crashing and Mewtwo emanates waves of distress that Green hadn’t thought the Pokemon would ever feel for a human, but even in her sleep, cradled in Blue’s lap, Yellow is convinced that Red will be fine.
Green doesn’t have time to wonder if maybe he should’ve had that talk with her after all. Even with his, Blue’s, and Silver’s Pokemon at work, the most they do is slow the airship’s descent. But at least it’s supported, at least they have a chance of saving Red like he’s saved them so many times—
Then, it plummets. Green’s heart goes with it.
--
Red literally falls out of the airship, noticeably exhausted and more noticeably shirtless, and Green can’t hold himself back from running to the idiot who does so much for everyone else and nothing for himself.
When he drops to his knees in front of Red, Red looks up at him with a grateful smile, and Green’s usual habit of trying to avoid being dazzled backfires when his gaze drifts down instead.
He… can’t really stop staring, even as he stammers through his responses. They’re both sixteen; is it really so weird that he finds it difficult to look away from his crush’s abs? He’s sure he couldn’t be any more obvious, but Red doesn’t flinch or shove him away.
A starburst of relief makes Green consider confessing right there and then, but the thought dissolves in the sunlight. They’ll have time later, when they’re back in Pallet Town and listening to Grandpa ramble about the research he’s done in Hoenn, when Green has a moment alone with Red to tell him how stupid (brave) and self-sacrificing he’s been and that he has people who worry about him.
Instead, he slings Red’s arm around himself again and tries not to think about how he can feel Red’s body heat seeping in so much more easily. He doesn’t really succeed, not with Red pressed against the line of Green’s entire side, but Red still doesn’t notice anything (Blue does, and Silver might too, depending on how much Blue’s told him) so Green is happy to live in this soft, warm bubble as they stagger toward the others.
--
Green is a fool.
While he’s been distracted by Red, he’s forgotten that Yellow is cut from the same cloth, just as kind and passionate and impressive. She deserves a Pokedex more than anyone; that much he’s known since he trained her.
So when he sees the tenderness in Red’s smile as he holds Yellow’s hand and curls her fingers around the Pokedex, he knows he never had a chance. It’s so expected, he doesn’t even feel the disappointment pooling in his stomach.
He’ll get over it.
--
Red’s hat lands on the ground with a quiet thwap that no one notices.
Green sees the tip of Yellow’s ponytail turn stiff and gray before he realizes he can’t move his legs. It doesn’t take long to piece things together.
It’s not ideal, but there’s no better time than now to say something, even if he’ll never get a response. Even if he’s just being selfish.
“Red,” he starts, but the stone finishes making its way up before he can take another breath.