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There’s something wrong with Volo.
There’s something… building, you think, as Volo tells you about his past. You can’t tell what it is, if this is normal. Do people normally talk about creating a new world when they want to make the world better? That doesn’t sound right, but you want to believe it.
You part ways just briefly, just so you can visit the nearest Galaxy camp and get your head on straight. You don’t talk to the professor about it, or the camp guard, or anyone, really. But the routine of organizing your items and changing up your Pokemon party calms you down, in a sense. If you’re going to be fighting a legendary Pokemon, like you think you are, you’ve got to be prepared and bring your best.
Some of these items you bought from Volo, actually, you recall. It makes you feel funny. Normally Volo makes you feel warm and happy, but there’s something wrong today, so you can’t even enjoy that as you rub your thumb over the smooth angles of the Max Revive.
You’ve never seen how Volo deals with wild Pokemon, you think as you creep your way around the Electric types on the way to the summit. Somehow, he doesn’t seem the type to run and cower. He had a… Togepi, wasn’t it? When you battled him? It’s been so long. You wonder how his Togepi is doing.
When you reach the Stone Portal, Volo’s there. Just inside, out of the view of the Galaxy guard who insists on standing at his post there even though he’s not guarding anything anymore. You’ve scarcely opened your mouth to greet him, to question him, when Volo smiles at you and makes a shushing motion as he takes your hand.
His hand is warm, and it’s comfortably bigger than yours, and this should be a lovely, wonderful moment, but instead the cave feels longer and colder and darker than it ever has before. Maybe nothing’s wrong with Volo; maybe something’s wrong with you. You wouldn’t know where to begin describing your relationship with Volo—unofficial comes to mind, but not much else—but it’s supposed to be better than this. It’s been better than this! You squeeze his hand, seeking some kind of comfort from your own thoughts, and he squeezes back, gentle. There, see? It’s fine. You’re trying so hard to convince yourself it’s fine.
In the end, it’s not fine. In the end, you battle Volo, wanting to scream and cry the whole time, and in the end, you claw out a desperate, narrow victory, against him and Giratina. Your eyes feel hot and your heart feels twisted as he offers you the Ghost-type plate, defeat and misery written across his face.
You step closer to Volo, moving purposefully, and shove him over as hard as you can, which, given your activity profile since arriving in this world, is pretty damn hard. The plate clatters to the floor as Volo instinctively splays out his arms to catch himself, and for all the good it’s done for you, you hope it breaks from the impact.
You straddle Volo, impacting your body weight onto his torso before he has a chance to get his bearings. Your hands reach for his throat. You don’t want to hurt him, not really, but he’s—he’s dangerous, right now. You need leverage.
He smiles at you. It’s not the unhinged, hungering smile he had given you before you battled, but it’s not the warm, comfortable smile of things being normal either. There’s something derisive and self-satisfied in his expression, like he’s… like he’s sullied you with this, brought you down to his level. Your hands are shaking.
“Why?” You whisper around the lump in your throat.
“I’ve already told you why,” he says, running a hand up one of your arms. You flinch.
“I… I wasn’t enough for you?” You let it out. It’s a hard blow when a lover would rather destroy the world than be with you. Volo’s hand leaves your arm and ghosts over your cheek. The tears in your eyes inch a little closer to the surface.
“What is one life against the weight of a world?” He sounds wistful.
“You were going to destroy the world!” You splutter. “That’s the opposite of how that saying goes!” You’ve gotten too worked up to realize what you’re doing, which is squeezing harder on Volo’s neck. And before you have time to realize and ease up, because you still don’t really want to hurt him, Volo’s expression turns dark, and his hand snaps from your cheek to around your neck.
You gag a little, reflexively. He’s not really choking you, at least not right now, but his grip is tight enough to be uncomfortable. Great, you’ve backed yourself into the corner of another impossible struggle against Volo. You hang your head. One tear escapes.
“I don’t want to do this,” you croak. You’re too scared to let go of Volo’s neck entirely, but you ease your grip to a feather touch. “I don’t want to have this… battle… with you. I didn’t want to have the other battle with you, either.”
You squeeze your eyes shut, and another tear sneaks out. You miss your Volo, the Volo who was kind and charming and who would never even dream of hurting you, but you’re starting to think maybe that was all smoke and mirrors.
That is, you’re starting to think that until Volo’s hand leaves your neck and wipes away your tear as it trails down your face. And that’s the last straw on your back from this fucked up day; you collapse into Volo’s tunic and start to full-blown cry.
You don’t even try to get any words out, despite the many, many of them building up unsaid in your head. The whole time, Volo is perfectly obliging, perfectly kind, rubbing your back and stroking your hair, even after all those things he said during your battle, even after he almost tried to strangle you. It just makes you cry harder. You want this to be as simple as it used to be so bad.
It comes to an end, as all such fits do, and Volo seizes on the chance to speak first while you’re catching your breath, newly surfaced from his chest. “You should know that I would never do anything to really hurt you, starlight,” he intones warmly. It’s loving, it’s got the pet name, it’s downright saccharine; it’s everything your aching heart could have asked for. But it feels hollow, underneath.
“How am I supposed to believe you when you say that?” You desperately babble. “You tried to kill me, Volo, that’s what that was, I don’t—”
Gently, but still firmly, he pulls you into a kiss, and in spite of yourself and all your misgivings, you let it happen, sighing and going limp in his arms. If you just will yourself hard enough to forget the last few hours… maybe things can be normal again. Maybe things can be better, and you and Volo can be proper lovers on proper loving terms, not this undefinable dance around labeling your relationship you’ve been doing for a while. The kiss isn’t really going anywhere, but that’s fine. You know Volo only did it to shut you up.
… Nope. You can’t do it. You break from Volo’s lips and that nowhere kiss, impacting your head into his shoulder. “I need you to take me seriously about all this, okay?” You’re pleading with him, begging for your life. Not your literal flesh and blood life, at this point, but the life you’ve tried to build here in Hisui. You don’t care about the Galaxy Team half as much as you care about Volo—one of these things has already forsaken you once, after all.
You push yourself up on your hands and look Volo in the eye. “Volo, do you love me?” You try to say it seriously, but your voice cracks, because you’ve just been crying.
“More than anything in the world,” he says, and drops the easygoing smile he’d been assuaging you with for something colder, darker. That’s… better than before, you think. You can’t buy “nice” from Volo right now, but this seems in line with what you’ve seen today.
“Then why…” you can’t finish the sentence, because there are too many ways to finish it.
This smile doesn’t reach his eyes, a hungry, icy thing. “Of course I was going to bring you with me, starlight.”
“But, you…” He’d gotten so angry, discomposed like you’d never seen him before. “… Are you sure you didn’t… love your plan more than me?”
Volo laughs dryly. “… You’re Arceus’s champion,” he says with a sigh—yeah, you hadn’t exactly been hiding that. “So I’m afraid certain… passions of mine may have mixed to ill effect.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“You were the one who wanted to preserve this world. I’d thought it tantamount to rejecting me.”
You collapse onto him again, your cheek landing on a wet patch left from your fit. Whatever, that’s fine. Miserably, raggedly, you spit out your truth.
“… I love you, Volo. Even… even now.”
Volo’s arms settle across your back. He hum-laughs to himself contentedly, melodiously.
“But no more trying to destroy the world!” You say it quickly, like it’s a “no tag-backs” on doomsday machinations. Volo chuckles obligingly and ruffles your hair.
“Anything for you, my starlight.”