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This is fine.
He’s been telling himself that for the past several years. Professor Willow wouldn’t fund my research, so it’s fine that Team Rocket is asking me to help steal my funding. It’s fine that Pokemon are being tortured, because it’ll make them stronger and more effective- they’ll follow lab protocol better next time, they’ll use anesthetic next time, it’s fine-
But now he has someone to comfort besides himself.
“It’s fine,” he whispers to the fragile-looking pink creature in his arms, stifling a cough. Its skin is smooth and downy, like a hairless cat. “We’ll make it- we’ll be fine. I have somewhere safe for us to go.”
The bricks beneath his sneakers are slick with rain. For a moment he’s not quite sure where his feet are. The world lurches, and he leans against the alley wall to steady himself.
“Attention all team GO ROCKET members,” a tinny announcement comes through the Radar on his belt. “Leader Arlo has turned against our glorious, beloved boss! He is currently making his way through the city with stolen experiments and data. Anyone who can capture Arlo and return him to headquarters will receive a substantial reward. His battle-ready team currently consists of a Charizard, a Mawile, and…”
Yeah, yeah. Old news. Better get moving, he thinks, and forces himself to trudge onward.
A pink-haired figure moves in the shadows at the end of the street. “Hey, Arlo! I’m coiled and ready to strike!”
Fuck. He can’t let the woman see how worn down he is, how worn down his team is. “Did you come alone?”
“Of course! I wanted the reward all to myself,” she says with a giggle.
“Good. Then no one will see your defeat.”
He would never have made it this far without Charizard. When he joined, Giovanni split the two of them up. “I don’t want you using a pokemon trained by Candela in the field. Charizard will be your test subject instead.”
He’d always gone by the cage as fast as possible, ignoring his friend’s despairing, uncomprehending roars. But tonight there had been nothing left to lose. Arlo approached the cage tentatively, ready for a fire blast directed his way. “Hey, buddy,” he said, his fingers curling around the bars. “Ready to get out of here?”
Charizard had just made this low, contented sound deep in her chest, bumped her warm forehead against Arlo’s cold hand.
Now, after hours of fighting and running in the rainy winter weather, Charizard is battered and breathing heavily, her movements labored. He only releases her to fight because there’s no one else. Salamence is hypothermic, and Mawile’s unconscious.
When she looks to him, he nods, like: set that Zubat on fucking fire.
She manages to take out the grunt’s whole team, but she’s whimpering with exhaustion by the time she crisps the last Muk. If anyone else comes after him…
No. Don’t think about that. His team is safe in their balls. He can send them away. Maybe Charizard is still strong enough to carry Mew to safety, even if he doesn’t make it. One foot in front of the other, the rain soaking his hoodie and fogging his glasses, soaking through his formerly pristine standard-issue sneakers. He probably looks ridiculous.
But I gave up my right to dignity when I grew so preoccupied with success, with proving my former friends wrong, that I became willing to hurt Pokemon to achieve my goals.
The apartment building he’s looking for is there. There’s a light on in the lobby, and a warm-looking LED fireplace. Instead of the buzzer, he uses the keypad. His fingers know the code automatically, without even looking. Inside, her name is still on her mailbox. That quirky jagged handwriting, as if she’s just dashed it off. The way she always signs (signed?) things.
Good. She’s still here.
Arlo climbs the flights of stairs to Apartment 3A, stopping at each landing to muffle a round of coughs. He shielded the sleeping creature from a Koffing with his body, and now his lungs feel like he’s drowning in a dream. Like, he’s breathing, but why isn’t he getting any air?
(The last time he felt this badly here, she teased him. ‘Promise you’ll get your flu shot next year, okay? I hope at least this experience has taught you something.’ And then microwaved some canned soup while he slept with Charizard- still Charmeleon then- curled up in a sweet little ball by his feet.)
And then… he’s standing outside her door. He made it.
I’ve come this far. There’s no turning back. I can’t go back… even if she hates me, she’ll help me keep Mew safe. Right? Chest tight, glasses blurry, he knocks on the door.
For a moment everything is quiet. Wild hope, almost terror, leaps in his chest. Maybe she’s not home! Maybe he can just break into her apartment and squat there until Team Rocket stops looking for him and the Pokemon he’s stolen from them, like a completely normal person!
Then he hears a Pokemon’s call. A Flareon. “Brrrp-breh!”
A lightswitch flicking on. Bare feet on a smooth wooden floor. “What is it, Kindling?”
“Brrpbrrr.” Little paws padding back and forth.
“Yeah? Someone at the door? Okay.” More noises, maybe putting on slippers or a robe. She always looked so peaceful when she slept. It was the only time that spectacular, brilliant mind of hers ever stopped analyzing situations, searching for new information. She always slept on her side, one leg slightly bent. She liked being the little spoon. They could never have the bed to themselves, just the humans- if it wasn’t her Castform, it was his Mawile.
Fuck. Get it together, Arlo! His chest ached. Maybe not just from the poison.
“Spark,” she called, her voice getting louder as she came towards the door. “Unless you’ve discovered a new Legendary, or Giovanni’s trying to kill someone, or you’ve figured out what’s under Mimikyu’s disguise, I told you not to come to my house- I hope this is important-“
He could have stood there for hours and never prepared himself for the shock of seeing her again.
Candela didn’t care about fancy pajamas; she always slept in oversized T-shirts that fell just below her hips, showing her smooth, toned legs. The material draped over her curves, just hinting at what lay beneath. Over that, she wore her old terrycloth burgundy bathrobe, the sash cinched around her waist. Her short hair stuck out in several different directions- because she’d gone to sleep with it still wet, as usual- and she wore her silver-rimmed glasses instead of her contact lenses.
She was the most heart-stoppingly beautiful woman he had ever seen.
In his most secret daydreams, Arlo had fantasized about a thousand ways this meeting could go.
Like: “Are you okay?” or “I knew you’d never truly betray me.” The way she’d hug him and her head would fit perfectly under his chin and she’d smell like roses and cardamom and cloves.
Instead, Candela’s full lips narrowed in a frown. Danger flashed in the depths of her fathomless eyes. At the slightest tilt of her head, her Flareon was at her side, mane blazing. “Arlo, you asshole. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t set you on fire where you stand. You have ten seconds. Go.”
“Uhh, I- the people who live above you are assholes about the smoke detector going off, and they’ll try to get you evicted again.”
She drew back slightly, blinking, her Flareon looking to her for a cue about what to do. Evidently that wasn’t what she expected. That was when another spasm of coughing shook him. It was all he could manage to hold the limp body in his shaking arms.
“Is that…” Because she’d caught sight of the tiny figure in his arms, wrapped in his spare jacket, unconscious and shivering.
“A Mew. Yeah.” And he stumbled inside while he was caught offguard, closing the door behind him. He touched the Pokeballs at his belt, daring her to defy him. She didn’t need to know his team was too weak to fight.
The bluff worked. She didn’t try to shove him out.
“What are you doing here? What are you doing with a Mew? No-“ She pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture he’d seen often when she needed to collect her thoughts before jumping back into a problem. “Why are you at my apartment at three in the morning with a Mew?”
Not wanting to ask if he could use the furniture, he slid to the floor. “Giovanni- he was-“ It hurt to talk about it. Not just how sore his throat was, but the fact that he’d been party to such horrible acts. “He wanted to create more shadow Legendary pokemon. He captured a Mew. But it was too strong, kept resisting the process. He wanted me to do whatever it took, even if that meant killing it in the process. Except… it saw me, it read my mind, and I just couldn’t.” The Mew had gone through his memories. What he’d expected was a painful process, his mind being wrenched open; instead it had been as gentle as fingers ruffling his hair. Showing him the idealist he had once been, the man who thought that science could help people and Pokemon become stronger together.
“Even though my base is pretty close by, I’ve been spending the whole day just trying to throw my former subordinates off my trail. I don’t think they know I’m here, and they wouldn’t dare fight you.”
Kindling, her Flareon, jumped up on a nearby counter, its ears back as it regarded him with disdain. She scratched its ruff. Her expression was inscrutable, unreadable. What are you thinking, he wanted to ask- but he’d lost that right long ago.
“I know you hate me, Candela. What I did was unforgiveable, truly. But I’m not asking you to show me any mercy. I’m asking you to show mercy to my Pokemon.” He unclipped the three balls from his belt. Mawile, who he’d found in a dumpster his first day in the city. Charizard, his first-ever Pokemon, who’d been with him since childhood. And his Salamence, the mate to Candela’s, who’d grieved as deeply as his Trainer. “We’ve been fighting all day. I ran out of healing items and Protect shields a while back- they’re all in really bad shape. And Mew needs somewhere safe to stay. I destroyed all the data on my way out, but Giovanni can’t be allowed to take any more DNA samples.”
Candela took a few deep breaths. Rubbed her eyes, covered her face with her hands. At last she looked at him once more. “You can stay the night,” she said, her voice oddly hoarse. “Just until I can contact Professor Willow and we can come up with a plan to protect Mew. You know how to fold the couch out into a bed, and there are still potions in the pantry.”
When she scooped up Flareon, it made airplane ears and bared its little teeth at him in a silent hiss. Flareon had always been jealous; one time it had sprinted into the bedroom and tried to burn his bare limbs, like, how dare you touch my trainer. At the time Candela had been so apologetic, giggling as she treated his wounds. “Kindling is always like this, with everyone I date, I swear!”
Now she probably relished having a protector.
Except… when she looked at him, her deep brown eyes were soft. Compassionate. It made him think of all the discussions they’d had, talking late into the night about how they could push themselves to be stronger, how they could make a better world. Microexpressions he couldn’t identify flickered across her face, one after another. “Arlo,” she began. And then stopped. “No. We’ll talk in the morning. Get some rest.” Then she went into her room, closing the door behind her. After a moment he heard it lock.
Arlo could tell from the data readout that his Pokemon had fallen asleep, exhausted by their battles. If they woke up and smelled Candela, smelled her team? They’d go wild, bellowing and crashing around and demanding to greet all their friends at once. Better save it for next morning. He diluted an Antidote to human-safe potency and sipped it slowly, the cool viscous texture like the opposite of a burn down his throat. It was so automatic to know where everything was, to rinse his glass and put it in the dishwasher afterwards.
“C’mon, it’s just a Hyper Potion,” he coaxed Mew. He sprayed some of it onto a paper towel and dabbed at the little creature’s scratches until its eyes open and it squeaked encouragingly at him. “Yeah. That’s it. We’ll get you healed up.”
Afterwards, it flew across the room and curled up in a little bed that belonged to either Castform or Flareon, probably.
“That’s not your bed. Kindling’s gonna be really pissed.”
Mew didn’t care, making a small contented noise as it snuggled into the fabric.
“Okay, fine, do whatever you want.”
He didn’t bother unfolding the couch into bed mode, just shook out the blanket and laid down. His body was exhausted enough that even this felt like a blessing. Yet something prodded at the back of his mind, not letting him fall asleep.
Then he realized what it was.
We, Candela had said. We can come up with a plan to protect Mew. We’ll talk in the morning. Like when she’d fought him right after his promotion to Leader, when she’d promised they could be a team again. When he’d ended the battle early to spare his Salamence the agony of fighting its mate.
After everything he’d done- all the times he’d spurned her offers of help, accused her of pitying him- she still thought they could be a 'we.'
Unthinkingly, Arlo rolled onto his side, his back to the wall. He hugged one of the large couch pillows as if he was being the big spoon.