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The first time it happens, it’s about two in the morning in a convenience store near her apartment, and Ema Skye is a woman on an entirely unrelated mission. Sometimes, you just need to restock on snackoos at two in the morning, because you and your girlfriend have been powering through the remake of a game she lost her fucking mind over as a child, and dammit, you’re going to kick Primal Dialga’s ass together if it kills you to do it.
Hopefully it won’t kill her, though. Kay’s been rambling about this game ever since the remake was announced a few years back, and while she hasn’t spilled on exactly what is coming, Ema might have an idea. Given all the talk about being erased from existence and all that.
In retrospect, maybe Ema should have made Kay play the partner character. But also, it isn’t as if she isn’t going to get super emotional no matter what, like they aren’t both going to get super emotional about… whatever’s coming.
Probably murder! Pokemon games are really fucking dark sometimes. It’s more fun when you can play co-op, though. Even if your characters can’t make out ingame, you can fix that plenty easy on the outside.
Anyway: store run. Kay’s a-waiting.
Lots and lots of packs of chocolate snackoos, check. Sweet tea for Kay and root beer for herself, check. Might as well throw some instant coffee in for tomorrow too, and—oooh, they sell luminol here now? Shit, she can’t not get a bottle of that. Never know when you might need some good old luminol.
That aside, she beelines for the register—
—and smacks right into someone else at the convenience store at two in the morning, sending both people and baskets flying to the floor.
“Shit! Sorry, sorry—” She grabs the nearest basket, thinks it might be hers from all the snackoos, then spies the multiple hair care products and some alcohol tucked in beside the chocolatey goodness and winces. “Okay, this is not mine, sorry, so sorry, are you okay?”
She extends her other hand to the person rubbing their head on the floor. Long blonde hair, tied up in a high ponytail like Kay used to wear hers. They’re wearing a ratty old hoodie and jeans, but they take the offered hand anyway, and let her pull them up.
Or more accurately, she starts to, and then she sees his face, makes a derisive noise, and lets him fall right back down. “Never mind, taking that all back, here’s your weird hair products, the fuck is a glimmerous fop like you doing here? Thought you’d have fans to deal with.”
Klavier Gavin takes the basket she shoves at him without a word. He’s watching her as she grabs her own basket, but it’s only when she turns back to him, ready to tell him to fuck off, that he says, “Fräulein Detective?”
“Yeah, duh, who else would buy this many…” She looks back to his basket and says, lamely, “...snackoos… but yeah, lab coat’s in the wash, we can’t all own tons of copies of our designer clothes that we totally own.”
“I didn’t…” Klavier squints at her. “You recognize me. You actually recognize me.”
Okay, so this is getting really fucking weird. She raises an eyebrow. “What, am I not supposed to? Your disguise is kinda shit.”
“Kind of? Nein, it’s terrible. Yet you are the first person to recognize me like this.”
Ema snorts. “You’re shitting me.”
“I assure you, Fräulein, I am not.”
“Well damn, you need to go outside more. Or do people just not have fucking eyes?”
“You… swear a lot more off-duty,” Klavier observes.
She rolls her eyes. “Duh. Off-duty. Now answer my fucking questions. Where the fuck are you going that people aren’t recognizing a fucking glimmerous fop like you on sight? You aren’t even trying to hide your face.”
“Ja. I think it’s the hair. So how did you recognize me?”
“I… have??? Eyes???”
He shakes his head. “Humor me for a moment, Fräulein.”
“Not unless you pay me.”
“I’ll pay for you?” He gestures vaguely to her own basket.
Ema grabs a couple more bags of snackoos off the shelf for good measure, then nods. “Deal. Lead the way, fop.”
And so he does, striding up to the counter with his basket hanging over his arm, humming one of his stupid little tunes. Probably one of the ones with a name so long her eyes glaze over midway through reading the title.
“Guten abend,” he greets quite cheerfully.
The cashier looks up at him with bleary eyes, and takes the basket. They briefly reach over to take a swig from their coffee cup behind the register. Then their eyes land on the six-pack of cheap beer and they say, wearily, “ID?”
“Ja, ja, of course. Here you go.”
He hands over an ID, an ID that must read Klavier fucking Gavin. He’s even standing in that ridiculous way he always does—and while she hadn’t noticed it at first, he is wearing that ridiculous G-logo-symbol-thing around his neck on a chain. As usual.
Ema holds her breath, waiting for the moment the cashier realizes just who is in their store at two in the morning buying beer, shampoo, and snackoos.
“Huh,” they say as they hand it back to Klavier. “Gavin, huh? Like the Gavinners?”
Klavier nods wearily. “Ja. Like the Gavinners.”
“Ha, you look a little like their lead. Klav Gavin, right? Small world, huh?”
“Small world, ja.”
“Ha, yeah, are you related or something?”
“Or something,” Klavier grinds out. “I’ll, ah—also be paying for the lovely fräulein behind me.” He steps out of the way, motioning for Ema to come forward.
Ema, whose jaw is practically on the fucking floor at this point, because what the fuck. What the actual fucking fuck.
“Uh, yep,” Ema says. “So, uh… you think he looks a little like Klav?”
“A little,” the cashier says with a shrug, ringing her up. “Nose is off. I think his hair’s a bit darker too. And… hey, yeah, your eyes are the wrong color. No hard feelings, sir, but I don’t think you’d win an impersonation competition. Even if you’ve got a similar name.”
Once they’ve returned their attention to her loot, Ema leans in and whispers, “What the fuck?”
“I know,” Klavier says miserably. “I think it’s my hair. I’m pretty sure I could go out in my usual outfit, but with different hair—”
“And no one would recognize you?”
“And no one would recognize me.”
“What the actual fucking fuck. Okay. Well, okay then!” Ema sighs, grabs her bag with a thanks to the cashier, then pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Hold on, fop. We need to science this.”
“Achtung, that’s… I have no idea why this happens, I used to have short hair and everyone recognized me, and then I started styling it like this and…” He shrugs. “A couple months ago, I went to a concert with my hair tied back like this, and nobody recognized me. Not even my own bandmates. I fixed my hair and suddenly they knew it was me again. Uh… Fräulein, who are you texting?”
“My girlfriend. We were playing video games, I’m asking if she’s okay with putting the probably-final boss on hold for science.” Her phone dings. “Yep, figured, we were kind of getting our asses handed to us anyway, probably a good time to take a break. You drive here, or…?”
“Ja.”
“So you’re saying that people will see you riding that obnoxious purple thing. And. They still don’t…” Ema throws up her hands in frustration. “Okay, what’s your number, I’ll text you my address. It’s within walking distance but even I don’t hate you enough to let you get your motorbike stolen.”
Kay waves from where she’s draped over her side of the couch, game turned off for now, as Ema walks in. “Hey babe, so—science. What’s up?”
“I’m going to do a little experiment with you, actually,” Ema says thoughtfully. “He’ll be here pretty soon. Please, please, please try to recognize him, I know you know who he is.”
“I do? Uh… okay…” Kay blinks. “Ema. Emmmma. Emmmememememema. I’m not that tired.”
“The fact that you’re calling me Emememema already is a pretty obvious contradiction, hun,” Ema replies. “But what the hell. Neither of us have work tomorrow—wait, shit, does he have work tomorrow? Eh, not my fucking problem. Also, I got you sweet tea.”
Kay fist-pumps the air. “Yesss…”
And then, and then, the doorbell rings. Time for the moment of truth.
“Sit tight,” Ema says, and then goes to open it. Klavier Gavin stands there, on her fucking welcome mat, hands in his hoodie pockets and his hair still tied back in a high ponytail, and still very much Klavier Gavin. “Hey there, fop. Welcome to Casa de Skye, don’t get comfortable.”
“Casa de…” Klavier blinks. “You speak Spanish?”
“Speak, no. Vaguely understand some of, yeah. You’re not the only person who spent a while studying in Europe, you pick up some things.” Left unspoken is the you’re the only one who got their dream job out of it. Not one to waste time, Ema grabs Klavier by the hood and yanks him in, calling, “Kay! Babe! Where are you?”
“Right here,” Kay says groggily from the couch. She waves. “Uh, hi! I’m Kay. Great Thief and Ema’s girlfriend. Who are you?”
“Nice to meet you, Fräulein…”
Ema sighs. “Just go with thief, if anyone asks she doesn’t steal anything but the truth and you’d never catch her if she did decide to steal anything else, Kay are you seriously telling me this man doesn’t look at all familiar?”
“Uh… no?” Kay shrugs. “Ema, am I supposed to know him?”
“Yes! Yes you are! Come on, Kay, please, this isn’t funny—”
“I told you,” Klavier says. “Nobody recognizes me like this.”
“Fucking—bullshit— UGH!” Ema smacks her hand against her face. “Kay, just—try imagining him in purple. And with his hair all, like, twisted up down the side of his head like this.” She makes a vague motion with her hands.
Kay blinks. “Uh… still got nothing, so—wait, wait, holy shit, you’re that prosecutor she always complains about! The fuck are you doing here?”
Ema spins on her heel, only to see Klavier now sporting his usual twist-down-the-side-of-his-head... thing. “What the fuck… that was… really fast.”
“When apparently the only thing that makes you remotely recognizable is your hair, you get fast,” Klavier says miserably. He undoes his hair again, and sticks it back up in a ponytail. “Achtung! Do you still recognize me, Fräulein Thief?”
“Well, logically, I know it’s you,” Kay says with a shrug. “But no, yeah, you look totally different. Whole different dude. It’s like all those Tony Hawk memes about how nobody can recognize him without a skateboard.”
“Ja, except for some reason, Fräulein Detective here can.”
“Why,” Ema says desperately. “Why me?”