Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If he was honest, he had done everything anyway. At the beginning of his journey, Grey had always had something to do; whether it was catching new creaturemon or competing in gyms, he was busy somewhere. As of recent months, however, his Creaturedex was completely filled and every single badge was in his collection, not that those badges were any difficulty to get anyway. People basically gave them away for some reason. 

Since then, Grey had spent his time trying to go literally everywhere in an attempt to find something new but found that the frequent barriers around his world were stopping him way too often. So he may or may not have started messing with some stuff and getting through many of the invisible, or sometimes very visible, walls that had stopped him previously.

Unfortunately, it is this hobby Grey had taken up out of sheer boredom that has caused the mess he is in at that very moment. He supposes maybe if he hadn’t gone through that barrier he wouldn’t have found this weird yellow rat and he also thinks maybe he wouldn’t be in immense pain. Said pain was caused by Shinto who seemed to be crushing both of them to death? That’s what it felt like anyway.

Grey had thought that maybe since he had done everything anyway, death shouldn’t be so unwelcome to him. However, this was not the case as even with the sickening sound of glitching filling his ears, he found himself trying to fight the crumpling of his person, hoping he might survive this with his life. At that time, though, it seemed that wouldn’t be the case, and with a last scream of pain, black swept his vision as death crept upon the young trainer.

- - -

He was wrong. 

Grey sat up, still in a completely pitch-black void, but breathing. And not crushed. And alive. And the rat was still here. And- the rat is still here.

He whipped around to see the yellow creature had regressed to her little form from before the whole capturing incident. After hanging his head with a thankful sigh he looked back up to see Shinto staring back at him. He squinted his eyes at her with an annoyed frown and the other copied him in jest. Seeing she obviously felt nothing from his very intimidating look he sighed once more and stood up.

“So where in the heck are we?”

Shinto only shrugged, and crawled quickly over to Grey, proceeding to climb up his back despite his vocal protests. She sat perched on his shoulder and looked at him from the side. 

“Really?”

She made no move to leave.

“ Fine , whatever, you can stay there, but we have to find a way out of this place. This is so your fault by the way so you better help out in our endeavors.”

Shinto raised her eyes and tilted her head keeping full eye contact with the trainer who only scoffed.

“Trying to capture you, a creaturemon, inside of a Creatureball is a perfectly normal thing for a creaturemon trainer to do. I know you are very averse to being captured but you way overreacted.” 

She rolled her eyes, or at least it looked like she did, Grey realized she didn’t actually have pupils in this form. Which is for the better because those small glowing white ones looked more like nightmare fuel than anything. Either way, he began to walk while the small creaturemon bounced energetically on his shoulder, beginning the duo’s journey to nowhere. 

Well, hopefully somewhere, they just didn’t know where yet.

- - -

They had been walking for hours. When in the actual fuck did this end. 

Grey’s originally brisk-paced steps had become slow and lagging as the two dragged on through the endless abyss in boredom. Shinto herself had stopped bouncing long ago and had curled around the trainer’s neck to rest.

“...Shinto I don’t think I can go on with this for much longer, we are literally going nowhere. ”

The little creature gave him a sympathetic look and leaped off of Grey’s shoulder. She sat down and patted the floor near her, an amused look crossing her expression after staring at what was probably a very tired-looking Grey face. He let himself fall down into a crisscross sit. He was sitting there for a break. He definitely wasn’t completely giving up or anything that’s ridiculous. 

After taking off his hat and setting it off to the side, Grey fell onto his back and lay with his arms and legs splayed out on the ground. Shinto got up from her own spot and walked over to curl up under one of them. Grey made no acknowledgment of this however there was no resistance either.

There wasn’t really any harm in sleeping, there wasn’t much of anything else to do, so he closed his eyes, Shinto having already done so, letting sleep wash over him. Grey was woken up from his peaceful slumber, however, by the sound of water dripping. 

After a few drops echoed throughout the otherwise completely silent void, he hesitantly opened his eyes. He didn’t move at all until his mind slowly processed the fact that he was in fact hearing a real noise in the real world which was the dark abyss that had literally nothing in it to make noise.

But then how was there a dripping sound?

Grey swiftly sprung up and looked around, startling a now-dazed Shinto from her sleep in the process. She was in the middle of giving the boy a dirty look until she as well heard one of the infamous water drops. Her ears moved around in search of the noise as well afterward, the sound being explanation enough for Grey’s behavior.

“Shinto,” the trainer whispered, “do you know where the noise is coming from? If we follow in that direction maybe we’ll finally find something.”

With a nod, the yellow creaturemon pointed Grey in a direction and let him pick her up as he went forward to approach the noise. He heard each drip closer and closer as he stalked forward, Shinto leaning with interest from her perch atop his head. Soon enough, Grey could just make out a figure. His steps slowed as he took each as silently as he could to not alert the other entity. 

He had to admit, he found it very odd that, from the distance they were at, it almost seemed as if the person had no legs and was like floating or something. In fact, he couldn’t even see arms. Yet he could make out their hat and the jacket they wore. 

Grey stopped and quietly commented, “how could the sound be coming from them?” 

Shinto, who had moved from his head to his shoulder, shrugged. Except she stopped midway and appeared to be looking closely at the figure. She motioned him to get closer, which he hesitantly did. He very much regretted it when he was finally able to make out that they were not wearing black sleeves and gloves or something, but in fact quite literally had no arms or legs.

So he said what any normal person would say.

“HOLY SHIT, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR LIMBS!?”

Grey felt he always asked the right questions at the right times and this was definitely one of those times. He especially felt so when the boy had turned around slowly and looked at him with his eyes. Well not really since it didn't seem like there were eyes anymore and instead some strange black liquid dripped out of them and occasionally the floor. It sent a chill down his spine.

“...I guess it wasn’t water…” Grey breathed out seeing as the mystery had been solved.

He wasn’t really focusing on said mystery anymore though, not when he was looking at this person that was definitely not alive anymore. 

This led Grey to think about two things. The first being, if that was here then seriously where in the actual shit had Shinto taken them. The second being, is he okay? Should Grey do something about that?? Maybe it was private and he shouldn’t ask, but either way, he had to make amends. Perhaps, it was a little bit offensive to scream about someone’s possible insecurities.

Taking a deep breath, he coughed awkwardly and, without making eye contact with the other, began to speak. 

“Um, so t-that did not come out right…uh…”

The other boy tilted their head and Grey just stared at the ground finding the black void quite interesting at that moment. 

On the other hand, Shinto, whose head had been perked up since the other turned around, found the prospect of a new person to be incredible. It meant she had another person to play with. She didn’t discriminate between dead-looking and not-dead-looking people when it came to friends. If she did, she wouldn’t still be hanging out with Grey. 

The creaturemon slapped the trainer on his cheek and when he whipped his head toward her with a glare of offense she motioned towards the other kid who was still floating there waiting. Grey looked up and stared into the eyeholes of the boy. He then tried to sound completely normal as he attempted once more to talk to the kid.

“So…I’m- my name is Grey,” he then motioned towards his shoulder, “and this is Shinto. She isn’t my creaturemon or anything but she is…here I guess. I don’t know.” 

Shinto gave him another slap, this time simply crossing her arms at his annoyed “Hey!”

“What? I mean a few hours, I think it was hours, ago you tried to kill me? Am I supposed to get “friends” from that?”

The creaturemon only gave a huff in response and then jumped off to skitter towards the witness of their stupidity. The other boy had looked down at her then, head still tilted. Grey stared at him and after a few seconds of silence asked, “So, what’s your name?”

He didn’t think the other boy was going to answer until he heard him finally rasp out a drawled, “ I’m dead .”

Grey flinched and at first, said nothing at the unnerving voice saying the unnerving thing that was not a proper response to his question. But he really couldn’t help filling the silence because lately there had been a plethora of it and he found himself quite tired from the lack of noise.

“Dead seems like an odd thing to have to call you. It almost seems like you may have not answered my question correctly BUT, don’t worry, because if that isn’t actually your name then you’ll find I’m giving you an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revise your answer.”

The other boy stared for a second but his eyes then scrunched up in amusement at Grey’s words. Suddenly, red glowing letter-looking things lined up in front of him, spelling out a name. The trainer decided he was gonna let this one go because there were way too many things he was questioning at the moment. 

“Gold. Okay, I can definitely work with that.”

Grey gave a shaky smile to the other boy, who gave a small smile back. Shinto found this opportunity perfect to crawl up his back and jump onto Gold’s shoulder. The ex-trainer jolted in surprise, having not seen the creaturemon, but let her settle onto his shoulder as she booped his nose.

“So, do you have any idea where we are?” Grey, who may have been watching Shinto with an amused smile but was not warming up to her he wasn’t shut up- asked hopefully.

Gold only stared at him. 

Grey sighed, he felt like he did that a lot, and looked into the dark abyss that lay before them. It seemed they were at a dead end once again. 

“Well, me and Shinto were trying to get out of here. See, the little rat did something dumb because, I guess, she was a bit mad at me for doing what every single creaturemon trainer would have done- ack- don’t kick me Shinto bad- AH- NO! MY HAT!”

While Grey was preoccupied grabbing his kicked-off hat off the floor and fixing it back atop his head, Gold turned his head to look at the creaturemon questioningly.

She looked to the side, obviously guilty of what was being accused. She was not sorry though, not at all.

“Anyways,” Grey began once more, hat back in its rightful place, “somehow she sent both of us here. Which is kind of embarrassing I mean what type of attack affects you too?- HAH you missed!”

Shinto jumped off of the ex-trainer’s shoulder and grabbed Grey’s hat this time. She landed on the ground, hat in mouth, and ran on all fours away from the duo.

“HEY! COME BACK HERE YOU DUMB RAT! SHINTO!”

Gold snickered to himself as Grey chased the thief around the void, neither straying too far though. Always close enough to be seen from where he was.

In the end, Grey had given up and just laid stomach down on the ground, hands covering his head in shame. Shinto sat on his back with the hat much too big for her covering her entire face. She couldn’t see but she got triumph from her win either way. Gold was lying down next to Grey, watching him mourn the loss of his hat and his pride.

Grey had to admit, though, as much as he was suffering at that moment, he wasn’t actually upset by any of this. Shinto, for all her stupidity and annoyance, was quite entertaining. And Gold, although Grey hadn’t known him for long, seemed to be nice as well. Plus all of this was somehow much more exciting than his own world from before. 

That place was honestly just as much an empty abyss as the actual empty abyss they were in, but worse. There he hadn’t just been bored, but also alone. Sure he had his parents…but they never really felt like his parents and everyone there felt really fake. It was strange. 

 But, in the completely empty void of nothingness he found himself in with Shinto and Gold, the only negative was that there was nothing to do. In some ways, he felt thankful Shinto somehow sent them to oblivion with her weird ass attack thing…wait.

Grey perked himself up with his elbows and looked on his back where Shinto met his stare from under his hat. 

“Shinto, can you still do that weird thing that sent us here? Can’t you just bring us back?”

She looked at him, expressionless. Then she looked down, letting the hat slip from her head. Her ears popped up and she clambered off his back. 

At this point gold had floated up to see what Shinto was doing, the strange letters coming from behind him to see as well. Grey turned over and sat up to watch.

Shinto proceeded to finally nod at Grey and then aggressively point down to signal she would be doing it right then. The trainer isn’t sure why he hadn’t expected this but immediately began regretting his suggestion because now he realized he was gonna have to go back through that horrible agonizing pain. 

“Now, wait a second Shinto, we don’t have to do it right now, I mean this place isn’t even that ba- WHAT THE FUCK.”

As it turns out, Shinto could not do her attack in normal little rat form but instead had to be in horrifying nightmare fuel form.

“Okay, maybe warn a guy before you do that, jeez, I don’t need any more trauma from you.”

She shrugged like always and suddenly the world began to shift. And glitch. And Grey had never regretted something so much in his life. Except maybe before the first time this happened. Either way, he ignored his panic at the incoming agony in favor of warning the other person here that sat in confusion at what was occurring.

“Gold, Shinto is about to like destroy everything so be prepared I guess- OH, wait, actually, do you want to leave with us? I just kind of assumed but I guess I never asked. I mean maybe you like being in a completely empty void of nothingness how would I know?” 

The ex-trainer shook his head at the last statement and looked over to Shinto who met his gaze and gave him a reassuring nod. She was actually planning on bringing him either way, can’t really break an entire world and exclude someone, but he didn’t have to know that.

 “Well anyway, Can you feel pain? Well, I hope not or else we are about to be horrible agonizing pain buddies hahahah-” 

His excessive nervous laughter was cut short as Gold leaned on Grey’s side. The trainer looked at the other in confusion but realized that due to Gold’s unfortunate lack of every single limb on his body along with the ability to speak anything other than rasps he was very limited in ways to comfort someone. But even with this, he had just tried. 

This thought is the only reason Grey didn’t shove him off when he realized that one of the bones sticking out of the ex-trainer’s body was touching his side. This became the least of his worries anyway when the crushing pain began anew. To think in the span of one day this had now happened to him twice. And the second time was his idea. 

What the fuck is Grey’s life?

Chapter Text

The first thing he felt was the grass that tickled his arms. The next was the weight upon his chest. The final was how hard it was to move.

The trainer groaned, slowly opening his eyes only to be blinded by a bright light.

“Fuckkkk…” he drew out and brought a hand over his eyes to try again in his endeavor. This time he was able to make out Shinto, she was curled up on his chest, back in her little form. She looked at him, probably woken up by his movement, but never stirred. 

Grey really didn’t feel like trying to fight with her anyway so he looked around from his spot in the grass. Speaking of which, he could see now that the plan had worked, they certainly were not in the void anymore. He hated how bright it was but still, thank Shinto they were out. He may have liked the creaturemon and Gold but he didn’t want to be stuck in that empty abyssal plane. With them or without them.

His eyes widened as he looked to each of his sides. 

“Shinto,” he winced at how raspy his voice felt, now that he thinks about it he hasn’t drunk anything in a while, but continued, “where is Gold?”

Her eyes now widened as she did the same as he, then shrugged. She crawled off and stood up, surveying the surroundings to see if there was anything nearby. Mostly there were only trees, but she spotted a lump on the ground a bit away. Shinto slapped Grey’s cheek and pointed to it.

“OW- oh there he is.” Grey cleared his throat and began to get up, making sure to grab his hat from its nearby spot on the ground while doing so. He found it extremely hard to move, but after being bitcrushed twice in a day he felt like that was expected. “Why do you have to be so violent about everything? Can’t you act like a normal creaturemon for once?”

Shinto’s expression told Grey that was a no. Either way, the two began to make their way toward Gold. It seems that in the light, the ex-trainers injuries just looked even worse. Grey never was one to be freaked out by blood and gore, but seeing only blood and bone where his friend’s arms and legs were supposed to be made him a bit lightheaded. Especially when looking at how still he was in his unconscious state.

“Wait…you don’t think the only reason he was alive was because he was in that void, right?” He began to panic whispering to himself, “Please tell me we did not just lead this man to his death.”

Grey stayed back as the yellow creaturemon got closer and put her ear on his chest; she looked back up with a thumbs up. His shoulders untensed as he released a relieved sigh and crouched down by the others. He lifted a finger and slowly poked the ex-trainer’s cheek. He kept his finger there and waited.

After sitting there for a few seconds and realizing it wasn’t working, he poked him a few more times. Shinto joined in, poking the other cheek, and the two sat there. Waiting for Gold to wake up. 

As it turns out, poking him in the cheeks several times didn’t help with that process; however, it did waste time for them as they awaited their friend’s awakening. At some point, the two had made eye contact and suddenly a challenge was silently declared. Neither were to stop and neither did. The only thing to cease their battle was the quick opening of Gold’s eyes as he whipped his head to the side, looking straight at Grey. 

Said person immediately jumped away, he had forgotten about the whole no eyes thing and, in consequence, lost the battle. In his defense, it didn’t help that Gold’s eyeholes bled some weird black fluid that only made them look more creepy when he opened them. Shinto jumped up, punched both arms in the air, and laughed a squeaky little laugh. 

“Ughhh that was not fair…oh! Um, sorry Gold we were just trying to wake you up. Then we may have gotten a little distracted. Maybe.”

He scratched the back of his neck maintaining a nervous smile as the ex-trainer squinted his eyes at him- wait, no he doesn't have eyes, he squinted his not-eyes?? Grey is just gonna call them eyes. Gold turned to look at Shinto, who was too busy celebrating her victory to even notice. Out of his hoodie came a few unowns that flew over to Grey and Shinto, attacking both of them with the same pokes he was dealt while sleeping but with more abundance.

“AH- Wait Gold we didn’t mean to- ow- okay maybe we did- ow- Shinto started it- ow- okay fine I started it- OW- WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME??”

Gold only gave him an unimpressed stare and did not stop the barrage of unowns. He turned to look at Shinto who was attempting to tackle the unowns and failing due to the larger amount of them and the very small amount of her. 

She looked at Gold with a look of offense that morphed into confusion when looking at the annoyed expression on the other’s face. After thinking for a moment, she realized what he was upset about and found nothing but amusement fill her mind. She proceeded to point and laugh at him, rolling around on the floor to try and dodge some of the unowns attacks.

He could very quickly tell that getting any sort of apology from Shinto was a pipedream and decided to leave her to her fate. Looking back at Grey he could see that he had basically given up any fight against the unowns and just sat on the ground covering his head and looking helplessly down at Gold. 

“Listen man you were asleep and we had nothing to do but I’m sorry for poking you so much. I would say your cheeks probably hurt, but I really don’t think that if you felt pain you would care about such a minuscule ache.”

Gold looked away from Grey which basically served as a confirmation of his thoughts. The unowns had stopped at this point, still in the air by Grey but not moving.

“Either way, I guess I’m sorry for violating you while you were unconscious- that sounds way worse than it should, I promise we really did only poke you for ten minutes. I won’t do it again. Maybe. Probably. I get bored okay?”

Gold’s shoulders shook lightly as he chuckled at Grey’s horrible apology and decided to forgive him. He nodded and the unowns went back to his side. 

Shinto was still rolling around on the floor by the end of the apology and the ex-trainer felt not even a sliver of sympathy in sending more unowns to continue the barrage of jabs. He then looked over to Grey who stood, shoulders shaking and a hand covering a small smile as he watched the creaturemon roll around in the grass causing blades to fly up and around.

They made eye contact; Gold gestured at his body using his head.

Grey’s head tilted as he stared, the gears could practically be seen turning in his head as he pieced together what the other was trying to say until it clicked.

“Oh shit, you can’t walk, can you? Were you only able to float because we were in that weird dark vacuum?” A small nod. “Well, shit. We need to find like a wheelchair or something then.” Another nod.

The trainer looked up to the sky with an aggressive squint and saw that the sun was decently far down. It seemed the night would fall upon the group in just a couple hours, this didn’t bode well for them.

“Alright, let's get moving then, maybe we can find something in a town nearby? I have no clue where we are though, and waking up in the middle of a forest doesn’t really help with locating things.”

Gold brought the unowns away from Shinto so he could send them up above the trees to look around. Meanwhile, the creaturemon got up and fell down next to the one who caused her exhaustion. Not that she blamed him, she actually felt she was given a perfectly fair punishment. She knew it was fair because she still felt no regret for her actions.

The unowns came down and formed an arrow to point the group to the nearest town. Grey gave a thankful nod to them, watching as they went back to their home, Gold’s hoodie. The trainer crouched down next to the limbless man and helped him sit up, adjusting the hat on his head so it was back into its normal position.

“Okay, here I’m gonna sit in front of you and just fall on my back and wrap…whatever is left of your legs around me.”

The two ended up successfully getting Gold onto Grey’s back, even if the creaturemon trainer was now struggling to hold him being that he was not a fit person. Shinto, who had found her third thing to laugh about that day, followed along when Grey had wordlessly begun to walk further into the woods. 

- - -

It took about thirty minutes of walking for the group to finally find their way out of the trees. They had found a path while walking and followed it out since it seemed to go in the direction they had been pointed to. When the trees finally ended they were met with a sign under the overcast but bright skies. 

“Well, that didn’t take too long so that’s good. Apparently, we are about to enter ‘Pallet Town’ which I have never heard of in my life so this only confirms we are not in our world Shinto. Gold, do you recognize the name?”

He seemed to think for a moment but ended up shrugging and shaking his head. 

“Well, either way, that’s where we are going. C’mon! There better be a fucking wheelchair somewhere or I’m going to collapse from exhaustion.”

They made their way down the path and into the small town. Strangely enough, it was quite silent; there was a both somber and uneasy atmosphere all around as the only sound they heard was their footsteps as they moved forward. 

“Where is everybody? It’s not that bad of a day out man, I mean seriously people are so dramatic. Anyway, tell me if you see a hospital or creaturemon center or something.”

Shinto grabbed Grey’s leg causing him to stumble, and almost drop Gold, but regain his balance. 

“SHINTO WHAT THE FUCK? DO YOU WANT ME TO DROP HIM??”

She rolled her eyes and pointed towards a little building with a symbol that deemed it to be the local medical center. 

“Oh my gosh please is there a wheelchair around? I feel like we can’t just walk in when Gold looks like- I MEAN YOU LOOK FINE i-it’s just, ya know, not everybody is used to seeing someone with no limbs…or eyes. BUT listen you look fantastic for your condition aha I mean really there is no disrespect there ha ha ha-”

During Grey’s nervous monologue, Shinto had gone into the building, pushing open the glass doors only to be met with a person at the counter. She stared off into the distance and looked very out of it which gave Shinto the perfect opportunity to steal the wheelchair that sat at the side of the room. 

She gave it a pull but found that it took putting all her force into it in order to move it at a normal pace. Shinto gave an annoyed humph but realized there was an easy solution.

  Luckily for her, nobody else, there was a simpler way. 

Grey’s head whipped over to the building when he heard a shriek only to watch as a now giant Shinto ran out gripping a wheelchair in her stubby arms and running towards them at full speed. His first reaction was to get the fuck out of there but he reminded himself this is the same rat that had been curling up on him to sleep, acting like a cat or something. Actually, now that he thought about that, this felt way less threatening.

She stopped right in front of them, putting the wheelchair down and sitting down on the concrete. 

“Really?”

The creaturemon rolled her eyes, which she actually had in this form…kind of. Do those glowing white pupils count? It still looks like there aren’t any eyes just the pupils so he feels like that doesn’t count. Whatever.

“You know what? I don’t even care. Gold, I’m going to attempt to get you into this wheelchair without dropping you on the ground, but if you end up with a mouth full of cement, this is your early apology.”

Grey thinks he may have heard a groan of some kind from him but he turned around and dropped him unceremoniously into the wheelchair anyway. The violent drop, listen the trainer was tired he didn’t have the energy to do this carefully, ended up almost knocking Gold straight into the concrete but Shinto caught him and pushed him back into the wheelchair before he met the ground.

Once she was sure he wasn't going to fall again, she quickly shoved Grey’s hat off his head. It was her version of scolding. Plus it was very easy when she now towered over the other and she found it very funny.

“WHA- SHINTO I’M TRYING MY BEST OKAY? I’VE HAD TO USE MY SAD WEAK ARMS TO HOLD THIS GUY AND WALK FOR LIKE AN HOUR. CAN’T YOU CUT ME SOME SLACK HERE?”

Her very sincere reaction was to pause for a second, then kick Grey’s hat further away.

She laughed at the trainer’s scream followed by annoyed grunts as he stomped over to retrieve his hat. He came back with a fixed scowl on his face but went behind Gold and began to push his wheelchair so they could finally leave the parking lot of the medical center.

Shinto took a moment to quite literally pop back into her tiny form and scampered over to Grey, taking her spot on his shoulder again. He didn’t resist, only turned his head to give her a very irritated look then continue on his way.

Gold, who had just been watching all of this go down, felt that after the minutes of them walking in silence in what seemed to be a random direction, he should probably ask his friend what he was planning…or if he had any plan at all. It seemed more likely it would be the latter.

The ex-trainer looked up at Grey who didn’t notice at first but Shinto tapped his back with her tail she gestured at him with her face. The trainer then looked down with his head tilted in question.

Unowns left Gold’s hoodie and arranged themselves in front of the group, Grey stopping to read them.

“Where are we going?- OH yeah sorry uhhhh well obviously we are going to…”

He very quickly realized he had no idea where the fuck they were going.

“Well,” he needed to make some shit up so he looked like a competent leader , “I’m hungry and I assumed you guys were too so we’re going to get food. Somewhere.”

The unowns very quickly rearranged this time into a single word.

“Money- oh.”

Grey dug his hand into his pocket to reach for his…wait no he doesn’t have a wallet he only has his Creaturedex. He took it out anyway out of curiosity and, strangely enough, he found it actually didn’t turn on. A pop-up said there was an error causing the system to be unable to start up. Huh, he’s gonna have to investigate that later.

Either way. They seemed to have hit an unfortunate roadblock.

“Honestly Gold, I have no idea what we're doing.”

He paused.

“I am actually hungry though.”

Grey began to tap his foot in annoyance as Gold looked back with a sympathetic look. Shinto thought for only a second before tapping Grey’s face and pointing to a random house. The trainer looked at the house in confusion until he looked back at her face to see the very devious expression the creaturemon was wearing.

“...you want to break into someone’s house.”

She nodded very excitedly. 

Grey thought for a second. He thought about the morality of doing this and how he should maintain integrity in this situation, not just do things his friends wanted to do.

He remembered he didn’t have morals.

“THAT'S AN AMAZING IDEA LETS FUCKING GO!!”

The three of them cheered, putting their arms, or whatever was left of them, up in excitement as Shinto started squeaking out maniacal laughs, and Gold’s eyes crinkled as a wide smile set on his face. Grey smirked, proud of himself for making such a good decision for the best of the group.

He was such a good leader.

- - -

The three of them now stood, or sat, in front of a random house, staring at it intensely. 

Grey squatted down in front of Gold and Shinto jumped onto the ex-trainer’s lap, settling down and looking at Grey. 

“Okay, okay, this is a very high-stakes crime we are about to commit,” they both nodded their head in understanding, “so we have to have a perfect plan to pull this off without a hitch.” They nodded once more.

“I’m thinking we wait until night falls then Shinto goes in through the window or chimney or something. She then opens the front door for me and Gold. Then BOOM, we’re in.”

Shinto giggles excitedly and accepts the plan with another head nod, Gold following suit.

Grey smiles and looks up to the sky to see how long they’ll have to wait. As it turns out, not long at all. The sun was setting, the sunset painting the sky with beautiful colors that Grey would have marveled at if he was a person with time. But he was a very busy criminal now who had no time for such simple things.

Not bothering to move, Grey sat down on the grass with his little group. They were on the lawn of the house they were about to rob but it was fine because honestly, Grey wasn’t even sure the house had anyone in it. 

While the entire town had been quiet, there still had been the occasional person he saw or lights on in a house. It was obvious there were still people. 

This house, however, was completely silent, not a single light on. It felt a little off, to be honest, but Grey was not one to let that stop him. Which was obvious with all of the events he had gone through in the past day. 

The trainer fell backward, laying his arms out in the grass as his hat was pushed sideways by the ground. Shinto jumped off Gold’s lap and sat on Grey’s chest once more.

“So, how’s it going?”

Neither the creaturemon nor the boy answered. 

“Well, I’d say for me it’s going pretty okay. Other than the whole hike we did just to get here, this has been pretty fun I guess. Actually, it’s funny because the last time I was in a forest I actually got stuck there for like a week. Basically, I found this alleyway…”

For the next thirty minutes, Grey told some of this story but then got sidetracked and instead went very deep into talking about how much he hated snow. The sun had already gone down by the time he was done with his rant and the other two found themselves confused when he stopped talking, realizing after a second that he had finished his speech.

They sat in silence for a moment until Grey looked up at the sky and it clicked in his head why they were all sitting on the lawn of some random person’s yard. 

“Oh, shit wait the sun is down it’s time for the operation. Man, I was so comfortable here too ugh whatever. Shinto get off.”

The yellow creaturemon begrudgingly slid off, pouting while doing so, and sat with her arms crossed as the trainer stood up and fixed his hat. 

“Alright, Shinto it’s your time. Let’s see if any of these windows are open.”

He pat his shoulder and looked back at Gold while she scampered beside his head.

“I’ll be right back man, don’t die while I’m gone.”

The ex-trainer raised his eyebrow but Grey had already spun around and begun walking to the house’s front window. He grabbed at the bottom as well as he could and tried to slide it up, fully expecting it to not move. 

It slid all the way up.

“Oh- Well shit man this guy wants to get robbed. Heh, okay Shinto go on in I’ll be at the front,” and Grey went back for Gold.

Shinto had climbed onto the windowsill and then looked into the house to find somewhere to land. It seemed she was in the kitchen, the counter was in front of her so she was easily able to leap onto it. 

Clanking was heard as dishes in the rack shook from her landing causing her to cringe, but she proceeded to find the front door anyway. She jumped down from the countertop, this time onto her feet, and began to look around. 

The house’s furniture was covered in layers of dust and some pictures and random items were scattered across the floor. Shinto thought about this for a second but shrugged and brushed it off, waddling over to the door. 

She jumped up to the doorknob, grabbed it to keep herself up, and turned the lock. 

Letting herself fall, she jumped back up and turned the doorknob, pushing off the door to get force enough to at least crack it open.

Landing, she pulled it the rest of the way and looked up at the other two who waited at the door. She bowed, gesturing them inside. 

Grey laughed but quickly remembered he was supposed to be quiet and shut his mouth.

“Great job, Shinto,” he began to whisper, “now let’s get some free snacks.”

He walked over to the pantry, pushing Gold along with him, and opened the door. There were some cobwebs inside, and a lot of the food like the bread was moldy and rotted. However several cans were stacked at the bottom of the pantry along with a shit ton of ramen for some reason.

“It seems we have found the abandoned house of a shut-in. Either way, I want all of that ramen, man, it shalt be ours.”

He grinned and dug into the pantry, ignoring the webs that stuck to his arms, and gathered as many of the boxes as he could hold. Meanwhile, Gold looked around the house in confusion. It seemed like nobody lived there but the air conditioning was on. Someone had to be paying for it.

They would be leaving soon though so he thought it was probably fine not to mention.

“Hey! Look at this Gold!” Grey wasn’t even trying to be quiet anymore, confident that they had nothing to worry about. 

The trainer held a tub of cotton candy, threads hanging off of both the container and his hand. Gold would have explained how that was probably really old and he would get sick eating it but when he saw Grey’s bright smile he decided he’d let him have this moment. Plus he kind of wanted it too. 

“This is awesome,” he humphed, “I’m gonna put some of this ramen in that little storage place under your wheelchair then grab a few more cans. After that, we can go.”

Gold nodded, proceeding to look around for Shinto. The rat had rummaged through some drawers in the living room and found herself a blanket. She was now rolling around on the floor in a burrito, giggling quietly to herself as she went back and forth. 

The ex-trainer snickered and Grey looked up to see the creaturemon’s antics as well. He huffed out a laugh, grabbing the rest of the ramen and then taking Gold and him over to the living room to join Shinto.

Upon notice of the other two’s approach, the creaturemon stood up as well as she could, sticking her arms out of the blanket and grabbing two more from the drawer they were stored in. She waddled over to Grey attempting to throw a blanket at him, doing the same to Gold after the trainer caught the very badly well-thrown blanket. 

The other could, of course, not catch the blanket since he had no limbs to catch it with. He simply watched as the blanket fell half on his lap and half on the floor. His eyes met with Shinto’s and he gave her an unimpressed stare. Her ears went down slightly and she looked to the side, breaking the eye contact.

Grey looked at the state of the blanket he was given. Ironically it was a grey color, whether that was due to the dust or actual coloring he didn’t know, but it was quite soft so he decided it passed his judgment and wrapped it around his shoulders, letting it hang. 

He reached down for Gold’s blanket, holding it out and shaking some dust off of it. Afterward, he laid it over his friend’s head, snickering as it covered the ex-trainer almost entirely in his wheelchair.

In response to Grey’s, and now Shinto’s, laughter, Gold had his unowns shove the blanket off of him and throw it over Shinto, who fell over inside of her blanket burrito. 

“HAH, get wrecked rat. Imagine getting destroyed by someone with no limbs-”

The unowns had grabbed another blanket, throwing this one over Grey.

“I kind of deserved that, not gonna lie.”

Gold snickered as well now, the three having fun messing around until they heard a creak come from above.

Complete silence filled the room. It took a minute before Grey could find his voice to whisper.

“...I’m guessing you heard that too.”

Gold nodded.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Another nod. 

The three, as quietly as they could, grabbed the ramen they had and gathered the blankets as well, slowly making their way to the door. Grey glanced around the house to give it a quick once-over before they left but saw he had left the cotton candy on the floor of the kitchen.

“Shit. I’m gonna get that, you two can leave.”

He did not think about the fact Gold could, in fact, not. The ex-trainer looked at the stairs with an unsure look, willing nothing to come down from them while they were inside. Shinto looked at Grey with squinted eyes from behind the pile of blankets she held but stayed, unwilling to leave the both of them inside. 

“Ah, got it, alright let’s go-”

But when Grey looked at the stairs they were no longer empty. 

The figure on the steps had dark long hair that was messy and unkempt with a hat atop their head. The more important detail is that they were staring straight at Grey, who was currently holding a bunch of ramen and a single tub of cotton candy from his pantry. The piercing eyes on the man’s face that glared holes into Grey said he was not very happy about his presence either.

The trainer swallowed, silently cursing the cotton candy for existing.

“H-hey man,” Grey started, very slowly standing up and beginning to take slow steps towards his friends, “this is not how it looks haha. Well, okay it is how it looks but it’s not as bad as it looks, you know?”

He must have not known because he did not move at all, only turning his head to keep his unwavering gaze trained at the person currently holding almost his entire supply of ramen.

“Well, either way, man, me and my friends have to, um, go. So uh. See you la-”

He stopped midway when the man took a single step down the stairs and stopped. Somehow that felt more threatening than if he had kept going.

Grey only stared now, slightly crouched. Shinto hid behind the blankets she held and Gold’s eyes never left the man on the stairs, cans of soup still laying in his lap.

The trainer wouldn’t admit it out loud but perhaps breaking into someone’s house wasn’t the best idea.

Perhaps old expired cotton candy hadn't been worth the risk.

And perhaps next time he was hungry, he would shoplift instead.

Chapter Text

The silence that hung around the four was deafening, and Grey was pretty tired of it. If he wasn’t scared shitless of the man on the stairs he would definitely be rambling right now, unfortunately for him, the guy had not even broken his stare. 

The trainer’s very limited patience was gone so while clutching his cotton candy close to him, he began to take a very slow step. The stair man still did not move at all. Another step. Nothing. Grey took a few more steps, each slow and cautious but eventually growing to be less so as he neared his friends. Still no movement. 

Grey, the fool, couldn’t help but make a comment.

“So are you just going to stand there man? I mean that’s kinda weird just saying. If your gonna threaten us so much you might as well do something. Or, well, you haven't directly threatened us maybe you’re just a creepy person? If so, sorry about the misunderstanding, maybe you should stop standing menacingly in the dark and you won’t give off those vibes.”

He was met by both the immediate scowls of his friends and the squint of the stranger’s eyes. Although it was quite hard to see the man’s eyes, especially in the dark, most of his observations here were educated guesses. Either way, it seemed his very well-intentioned advice was being taken the wrong way. He guessed he was threatening them then.

Grey swallowed but was at this point close enough to touch Gold’s wheelchair if he reached far enough. One more step and he would be right there so they could just book it, and maybe this guy would just stay where he was.

Alas, that was not the case.

When he went to take that last step, he watched as in a very quick movement the stranger threw something at the door, the three in the group whipping their heads around to watch as the door slammed shut and the ball that closed it fell to the ground. A nervous laugh slipped out of Grey’s mouth as he harshly gripped his cotton candy and turned back towards the man whose arm was still out from the throw.

“...so, I think we all learned a very valuable lesson here and on that note, if I just leave the ramen here, can we maybe just go with this newfound discovery and never come back again?-”

“No.”

Grey flinched, not having heard a voice other than his own in a while. It didn’t help this voice was very grumbly, deep, and unhappy. He felt sweat slowly trickle down his face as he gave another laugh in response. 

“Hah, you know what? Yeah, that’s about what I expected-”

He was interrupted by the sound of a Creatureball- actually, hold up he has never seen a Creatureball that looks like that before what the fuck is that?

“What the fuck is that?” He repeated, this time out loud, pointing at the strange ball.

The opening of the… ball was stopped as Gold and the stranger looked in confusion at Grey, not noticing that Shinto’s head was tilted as well as she stared at the object. 

Gold as usual said nothing however his eyebrow slowly raised, at first believing Grey must have been joking but slowly realizing by the innocently baffled face of the trainer that he really had no idea what it was. The long-haired man spoke after a period of silence.

“...a Pokeball.”

“You mean a Creatureball?”

“No.”

“...oh.”

Grey dropped his tub into Gold’s wheelchair compartment. He put his hands together and moved them in front of his face in thought as he realized he was definitely missing something big here. But he really hadn’t even heard of a Poke ball before. Ever. It looked pretty fucking similar to a Creatureball though so there was only one option here.

“Is it like…a knock-off Creatureball?”

The stranger looked slowly at the ball and back at the boy, seeming hesitant to even answer that question.

“No?”

Nobody spoke after that. They all found themselves staring at the Pokeball, the two puzzled bootlegs trying to figure out if they had ever in their life seen or heard of that before and the other two trying to figure out how it was possible the trainer hadn’t even known what it was. Grey gave up and turned back to the man on the stairs.

“Can we just, like, go back to what we were doing before? Maybe we can all talk about this later instead.”

With sounds of agreement along with some nods, the four decided to postpone whatever conversation they were about to have. The long-haired man took a second to walk over to the Pokeball, pick it up, pocket it, and walk back to his place on the stairs, somehow doing all of it without bumping into anything in the dark house.

They all looked back to the stranger who stared back at them with a glare much less menacing than before. A few more seconds of silence went by before an annoyed groan cut through the air.

“Great job kid, you killed the mood.”

A gasp and Grey immediately jumped to defend himself, “What? You're the one that threw that weird-looking ball! You could have thrown your shoe at the door or something but no you chose the Poke ball-”

“Stop saying it like that-”

“Like what?? I’m just pointing out the changed part of its name because it makes no sense.”

“It makes more sense than a Creature ball I mean what the hell even is that?”

Gold and Shinto looked at each other, then back at the two bickering trainers, then back to each other. It seemed Grey had very unintentionally distracted the guy from the whole robbery thing. With the tense atmosphere at a lull, Shinto jumped onto Gold's lap, throwing the soup cans off and settling down under the blankets she had held.

Grey and the long-haired man had stopped their argument at the sound of the cans scattering across the tile and watched until they all came to a stop. Grey looked back at the other and observed him as he seemed to contemplate something. He only slightly jumped when the man moved off the stairs and towards Grey. He stopped a few feet away, looking down at him.

Seeing the stranger from up close showed he was incredibly tall, at least compared to Grey who would say he was average size, and the man’s hair really did reach to the back of his knees. It was honestly quite impressive, he didn’t think he could ever manage hair that long. Not that it seemed like this guy did anyways judging by the number of tangles and mats in it. His hair seemed to have been shunned for a while.

He looked up at the man’s face after studying him, trying to make eye contact but failing when he realized he really couldn't see the other man’s eyes under the shadow that covered his face. He decided to simply look somewhere in that shadow and assure himself he was at least looking in the vicinity of where he should be. 

It was at this moment the stranger’s stomach made a low rumbling sound. He didn’t move. Grey didn’t either. Shinto and Gold watched in anticipation for anything to occur, the silence becoming boring for all of them at this point. 

Grey looked down at the instant ramen under Gold’s wheelchair, grabbed one of the cups, and picked his head back up to see the other.

“Want some ramen?”

He only stared. 

“It’s chicken flavor. The best.”

The man mumbled something in response to that but Grey was unable to hear it.

“What?”

“I said I know it’s chicken it’s my damn ramen.”

“If it’s yours why is it in my hand?”

Suddenly the ramen was no longer in his hand. Grey hated the smirk now on the other man’s face as he stared down at the trainer with the slightest bit of joy now slipping into his expression.

“I’m sorry, whose hand did you say?”

“Fuck you.”

He snickered and walked away to the kitchen, turning on the sink and filling the cup with water. Grey watched for a moment and turned to the others. 

“Okay,” he whispered, “let’s get the fuck out of here before he takes the rest of this ramen from us.”

Taking the wheelchair’s handle into his hands, Grey wheeled them towards the door and reached to grab the knob, flinching back at the bang of a spatula as it hit the door and fell to the floor. He spun around to look at the kitchen where the man squinted his eyes at him, smirk gone and a frown in its place.

“I wouldn’t leave if I were you. Not with my shit.”

Grey looked at him, looked at the door, then looked back at him squinting. 

“And what are you gonna do if we leave anyway? Throw something else at me?”

“Let’s just say you’d get a hands-on learning experience on what exactly a Pokeball is.”

Wow. He felt nothing.

Grey turned the doorknob and pushed his friends out, ignoring the yells in his direction telling him to stop. Well ignored them until he was hit in the back with something else.

“AGH- JEEZ MAN I WAS JOKING BEFORE, WHAT IS WITH YOU AND THROWING THINGS??”

“Well, maybe if you listened to me I wouldn’t have to throw shit in the first place, now give up the ramen or else.”

“Not in a million years, bitch.”

Grey was not a strong person. He also did not expect to get tackled. These are all the excuses he had for the high-pitched screaming when he was tackled to the ground by the long-haired man. He couldn’t really do anything as they tumbled in the grass and he was pinned to the ground. 

The stranger looked down at him in annoyance grumbling his demand out to the trainer.

“Give me back my ramen. ”

“No-”

He just barely dodged the punch toward his head. 

“DUDE CALM THE FUCK DOWN IT’S JUST RAMEN WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO COMMIT MURDER???”

“Wouldn’t be the first time-”

“WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!”

An awkward silence began to take place, but fuck Grey was completely done with silence today so he broke it quickly with a sigh and began to speak.

“Okay, okay, listen man. Get off of me and I’ll return some of the ramen with the added bonus of ignoring that statement but not before I get some myself man. I’m hungry as shit and I’m not fucking leaving without food. Deal?”

The man looked down at the other but his expression turned into something much more tired and he slowly stood up. Looking down at Grey for a moment he then stuck his hand out in offering. 

With only some hesitation the smaller trainer grabbed it and was pulled up. He shook the hand and looked up at the man with a slight smile. 

“It’s Grey by the way. The one in the wheelchair is Gold and the ugly yellow rat is Shinto.”

The man ripped his hand out of Grey’s grip and he looked away. The Creaturemon trainer almost gave up on getting a response but then heard a grumble. 

“Steven.”

The man walked back into his house, not looking back.

Grey’s gaze was stuck on the doorway as he stood in the grass letting his mind catch up with the events that had occurred. He was interrupted by a slap to his face. 

“OW- WHAT THE FUCK SHINTO.”

She was on his shoulder, her eyebrow raised in expectance. 

“I’m not sorry, you are a rat.” 

Another slap was accompanied by snickers from the ex-trainer nearby.

“BRO, you're literally yellow how are you upset at that?”

Shinto squinted at Grey, her ears pinned down on her head. 

“What else did I say- OHHH well I mean you being ugly is a matter of opinion so I can’t really take that back without lying now can I?-”

As it turns out Shinto is stronger than she looks in her little form and he found himself tackled to the floor once more but this time the yellow creaturemon simply sat atop his back with a humph and waited for an apology.

“UGH, why does everyone hate me so much today. Actually, why didn’t you help me when I was attacked by the Steven guy? You could have literally just turned into your big form and destroyed him.”

While it is true Shinto could have done that, she really only goes into that form if it’s necessary or for her benefit. Shinto hadn’t thought Steven was going to actually hurt Grey, and he didn't, but if he had then she absolutely would have gotten in the way. Not that she felt like communicating any of this to Grey and also she was still upset about the whole ugly thing so. 

She stomped on his spine and a sharp scream of pain pierced the air.

“SHINTO THAT ACTUALLY HURTS DON’T DO THAT, IM SORRY, OKAY? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? A HOLLOW APOLOGY??”

He stood up and let Shinto fall off his back. A squeak of surprise was heard but he didn’t even turn around instead stretching his back as well as he could. 

“Ughhh, see what you have done Shinto? How am I supposed to exist now?”

Gold, who had been watching in amusement, raised his eyebrow at that comment but simply shook his head and let it go in the end. He had an unown leave his pocket and tap Grey on the shoulder though.

“Oh, yes Gold?”

More of the strange letters came out and spelled out a reminder.

“Steven- OH SHIT YEAH. THANKS, MAN.”

The corpse -well is he dead though? I mean his heart beats- the not-corpse nodded. Grey turned to look at Shinto and scowled. 

“No more stepping on my spine alright?”

She didn’t nod, only scowling right back at Grey. He sighed. 

“You're not ugly. I mean, a rat? Yes. But ugly? No, I guess I wouldn’t describe you that way. I would describe you as disgusting, though, I mean have you ever taken a bath-”

He only laughed as Shinto scampered up his shoulder and batted at his face. 

“HAH HA- alright, alright calm down there, none of us have taken baths in a while, okay? We’re all disgusting.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, sitting down on Grey’s shoulder with her arms crossed.

Another small snicker and Grey walked to grab Gold and wheel them all back into Steven’s house. They could technically leave with all of the stuff if they wanted to but…well Grey didn’t really want to. Because you know there was a microwave in there which makes things easier for everyone’s ramen. There isn’t any other reason actually. He would like everyone to know that.

He closed the door behind him and went to the kitchen where at this point Steven had already finished making his meal and was sitting at the dusty table, holding his ramen in one hand and chopsticks in the other. The light of the kitchen was on but it was dim and flickered on occasion. It seemed there were endless things about the house and this man that were at least slightly unnerving.

The Pokemon trainer stared at them as Grey took three ramen cups out from under Gold’s wheelchair, secretly giving a little pat to his beloved cotton candy tub that soon enough he would be enjoying, and went to fill them up with water.

As he prepared the food, Steven ate the last of his and looked to the table where he was going to set it down. His mouth straightened into a thin line as he saw just how dusty it was, but he shrugged and threw away the cup instead. 

Gold had seen the confusion evident on Steven’s face when he looked at the table and began to question just how ignorant the man was of the state of his house until now. There was actually a lot about this guy that raised questions, the fact his house and himself were in such an unkempt state along with the strange comment about having murdered someone before? Gold wanted to say it was a joke but he had the feeling it wasn’t. 

Eh, he guesses it’s fine so long as he doesn’t murder anyone else. Maybe that person really sucked. 

Grey set down three ramen on the counter, dust flying up around the cups as he did so. 

“Done! Oh, hey where’s the silverware?”

Steven pointed to one of the drawers, but when the Creaturemon trainer opened it he found only chopsticks.

“Dude, where are the forks?”

He raised his eyebrows. 

“Why would I use a fork for ramen?”

“...do you not eat anything other than ramen?”

Nothing was said in response, he just looked to the ground, ignoring Grey.

“That’s not a great sign but okay then. Are you completely sure you don’t have forks though?”

“Why do you want one so bad?”

“...Shinto might not know how to use chopsticks, obviously.”

There was no way in hell he was admitting his lack of skill in the art of chopsticks. In his defense, he didn’t have anyone to teach him since his parents were very distant and he had no siblings, but still. He had to look cool.

Unfortunately, the yellow creaturemon laughed a high-pitched squeak and snatched a pair of chopsticks from the drawer, somehow making her stub hands able to hold the sticks and happily eating some of the noodles.

A nervous laugh came from Grey as he looked back down at the drawer and hesitantly grabbed chopsticks for himself and Gold.

He sat down on one of the chairs after brushing off some of the grime with his hands, setting down the two pairs of chopsticks for him and his friend, and bringing his ramen closer to him. He stared into the cup longingly.

Gold, who sat by the table in his wheelchair, also stared at his cup. But there wasn’t really anything he could even attempt with the chopsticks placed in front of him. Just stare.

Steven looked at the two and then at the rat, who sat on the kitchen counter chowing down on her ramen with excitement. Returning his gaze to Grey, who sat still with his eyes fixed on his ramen while salivating, he seemed to have no intention of just admitting he needed help. After questioning how these three were still alive with all of the dumb shit they do, he sighed, rolling his eyes, then scooted his chair closer to the other. 

He held up his chopsticks and snapped to get the Creaturemon trainer’s attention.

“This is how you hold it. Copy.”

Grey, who had honestly expected to be made fun of for his lack of knowledge, only hesitated a moment before mimicking the hold. Once his fingers were correct he looked at the other’s face expectantly.

“What? Just use them now, you can figure it out from here.”

With a small annoyed grumble, the trainer began to spin the noodles around his chopsticks, trying to keep his grip just as Steven had shown him. 

The Pokemon trainer got up and walked over to the other boy who stared at his cup of noodles but for much more understandable reasons.

“Is he always this stupid?” Steven questioned, a small glance at Grey signaling what he meant.

Gold shrugged, but an amused smile sat on his face. He then took out some unowns and demonstrated their sad attempts at grabbing the chopsticks, as it turns out the whole not having hands things did not help in their endeavor. Steven, who at first looked mildly surprised at the unowns that simply resided in the other’s pocket but then remembered the strange bunch of people he was dealing with, nodded, going into his kitchen to see what was left of the silverware.

Shinto, who had finished, now jumped onto the kitchen table and climbed onto Grey’s shoulder, causing him to drop some of the noodles he had successfully grabbed.

“Bruh. Shinto why are you like this?”

She only snickered in amusement then curled up as best she could on his shoulder while he ate and closed her eyes to nap. He rolled his eyes but didn’t bother her, simply continuing his chopstick struggle. 

Steven returned to Gold having found a leftover fork in his sink and gave it to the unowns who were able to hold it much easier than the chopsticks allowing Gold the ability to eat. The ex-trainer gave a grateful smile to Steven and then focused on eating.

He hadn’t eaten in a long time, so long that even though it was cheap instant ramen and his taste had been dulled due to his state, he felt like it was one of the best things he had ever tasted and he intended to eat all of it and enjoy it.

The Pokemon trainer now settled back into his chair next to Grey and leaned back with his hands intertwined behind his head, sitting with the group in a comfortable silence. The first one in a while. 

- - -

Grey put his head down, staring out the kitchen window at the sun that began to peek out from behind the trees. It was annoying really how the exhaustion had crept upon him and now all he wanted to do was let his eyelids shut and allow a deep slumber to take over his body. 

He didn’t let himself fall asleep though, after all, they were still in Steven’s house and Grey wasn’t completely sure where they stood. Maybe the group should just leave then, before the three of them end up passed out on the table. 

When Grey looked at the ex-trainer it only reassured the thought. Gold was sitting in his chair staring off into space, which to be fair was completely normal for him because he always looked like that, but the trainer could tell by his half-lidded eyes that he could be asleep at any moment. Shinto’s quiet snoring was in Grey’s ears as she slept on his shoulders and he got up. 

Steven, who had simply been sitting on the chair observing the others, and possibly been falling asleep a bit as well, looked up at the creaturemon trainer. 

“I think,” he was interrupted by his own yawn, “It’s about time we head ho-”

Grey had a realization that they had no home.

He yawned again and grabbed the wheelchair handle, deciding they should probably leave anyway, their arrangement after all had been they eat and then return the food. The leaving part was implied. He also thought that maybe if they left while Steven was tired he would forget about the rest of the ramen.

Steven watched Grey, who was very slowly pushing the wheelchair, each drowsy step looking difficult as he tried not to fall asleep just walking.

“You won’t make it anywhere before passing out on the street. Just sleep here.”

The trainer stopped pushing and turned around trying to process the words for a second. His face looked slightly confused when he did.

“I thought the agreement was to eat food and leave?”

“It was.”

Grey stared at the Pokemon trainer. He didn’t move.

“Whatever man, I’m not gonna fight you when I’m like 90 percent sure I’m going to fall asleep right here.”

And with that, he abandoned the wheelchair and walked over to the living room. Seeing the dust layered on the couches his sleep-ridden brain decided to instead collapse on the probably even dustier carpet, rolling onto his side to get comfortable. Shinto, who had been jostled from her sleep on his neck, startles awake for a moment but simply crawled over Grey and curled in the trainer’s arms before falling asleep once more.

Steven scrunched his eyebrows, frowning at the boy’s actions. He ended up taking the wheelchair over to the living room anyway and grabbing some of the blankets that were almost stolen by the same fools he would place them on, he laid them over the two sleeping on the floor.

Gold observed his actions, not making any movement as he felt incredibly out of it. Steven looked back at him and he looked up, waiting. 

“Floor or couch?”

The ex-trainer looked at the two on the floor, not sparing even a glance at the couch.

“Hm. You guys are weird.”

Even with the comment, Steven did not hesitate in doing just as Gold requested, taking him off the wheelchair and laying him on the floor next to the other two. 

After placing a blanket on the boy, Steven stood up and stared at the three. All of them were already asleep even though just moments before they had been awake; Grey nor Gold had taken off their hats before their slumber so they fell out of place but still were atop their heads. 

He glanced for a second at the ramen that was stashed under the group's wheelchair. He decided it wasn't worth his time.

With a sigh, Steven fell down on the couch. He grabbed his own blanket and a pillow, laying on his side and allowing his own eyes to shut.

Ignorant of the sun’s rising as everybody else in the town woke up and got ready for their day, the four slept on, the three on the floor comforted by each other’s presence, and the one on the couch finding he really didn’t mind having company for once. Even if his company was a bunch of idiots.

- - -

“Gold…Gold… Gold…WAKE THE FUCK UP.”

The ex-trainer finally opened his “eyes” and looked up to see the culprit of his awakening. Grey, whose hair was disheveled and whose hat was lopsided on his head, looked down at him with impatience. 

Gold didn’t want to bother getting out his unowns so he rasped out as best as he could.

“ What? ”

Grey looked taken aback for a moment but shook his head and began his whispering once more. 

“We have to make pancakes.”

It was Gold’s turn to be taken aback mostly by the wording. Why would they have to make pancakes?

“Gold you don’t understand, I saw pancake mix in Steven’s pantry, if I don’t have pancakes right now I might explode. Or implode. Whichever comes first.”

The ex-trainer raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. 

“Pleaseeee,” he dragged out, grabbing Gold’s cheeks.

Gold squinted his eyes in annoyance and shook his head to get Grey’s hands off. After a silent sigh, he nodded his head.

Grey lifted his arms in quiet victory and mouthed a hurray. He glanced at the couch for a second, making sure their host hadn’t awoken yet, and then bent down to grab Gold. After putting him in his wheelchair he looked at Shinto for a moment but she still lay curled up, now in the blankets instead of his arms, and he decided against disturbing her slumber.

Going to the kitchen he set Gold in front of the pantry. 

“Okay you get the shit out from here and I’ll get all the measuring cups, water, and all that.”

Gold nodded, his unowns grabbing  the pancake mix first so he could see what was needed.

Meanwhile Grey opened every single cabinet in the kitchen, cringing at every creak and whipping his head to look at the couch. Each time nothing changed. It irked Grey that Steven was so silent when he slept though, why did all of his friends other than Shinto seem dead when they were asleep?

Grey and Gold finished their jobs and the counter was now full of ingredients, bowls, and measuring tools. They looked at each other giving a triumphant nod and the two then began their pancake-making adventure. An adventure with one person who hadn’t made pancakes, or eaten them, in an incredibly long time, and with another who had burnt down the kitchen when he cooked anything as a child. 

Things would certainly go smoothly.

Chapter Text

They stared at the bowls and ingredients that littered the entire kitchen island and for a small moment, Gold questioned why they had taken all of it out. Grey put his arm around Gold and looked at the counter with him.

“Yeahhh, so I got out everything just in case we decide to get fancy with things and I see you must have thought the same as me, which is very impressive by the way high five- wait fuck, no, please ignore that. Um…anyways, we probably won’t end up using it all though, sorry I know you took a lot of time to take everything out of the pantry. It is important for the very unlikely, but also very possible, scenario we need them.”

Gold was not in the least bit offended because, honestly, he hadn’t read the box and just took out everything so that he wouldn’t be missing anything. Grey grabbed said box and turned to the back to read the instructions.

“Okay, so it says to heat the skillet over medium-low heat, combine all the ingredients, and stir until the lumps disappear. Then we just pour some batter on and flip ‘em when they bubble? What the fuck kind of pancakes are these? Don’t worry Gold, ours won’t bubble.”

He then set down the box with a small smile and put a bowl in front of the ex-trainer. 

“So how much are we making? It said that one cup of mix makes six to eight, but we have a lot of people here so we need like thirty or something right? How much are you eating?”

Gold only shrugged and had some unowns come out to spell for him.

“Why don’t we just triple the recipe- incredible idea, Gold, this is why you're one of my best friends.”

The ex-trainer grinned and Grey grabbed the box once more, but this time so he could do math. 

“Well, obviously one times three is three but how much water- WAIT WATER! Fuck no, we’re using milk- Gold, get out the milk.”

The unowns opened the fridge and took out a gallon of what most likely once was milk. Inside the carton, it looked as if the substance had separated itself into clumps of white and some strange-looking translucent liquid. In other words, it looked horrendous. Not to mention it brought with it a smell that caused both trainers to cringe and wrinkle their noses in disgust.

“...I don’t think that’s milk anymore, Gold.”

Silence as they both stared at that horrible thing sitting on the counter. Even the unowns had simply stopped what they were doing to stare at it.

Grey whispered quietly, “Throw it out.”

And so out the window it went, and the two ignored the sound of the carton breaking open, sending the substance out of its container and into the small flower garden outside.

“Well, I guess I’ll accept water, but only today,” Grey said as he grabbed the measuring cup. He stopped in his tracks though as an idea came to mind. “Actually, here is a fantastic idea. Since it seems that Steven forgot to ever look inside his fridge or pantry in months, we should get groceries for him.”

Grey slammed down the cup and turned before he could see Gold’s smile and went through some of the drawers on the kitchen island, finding a small notepad. The first few pages had been taken out, probably used for similar purposes that they were about to use it for, but the page on top had a note on it. It was just a simple note that explained someone was going to the store and would be back in a few hours. 

“Huh, wonder if someone else used to live with him. Doesn’t seem like the type.”

He ripped it out and pocketed it even whilst Gold had turned his head to stare at him with an eyebrow raised. Taking a pen out of the drawer he titled the list Groceries and the first bullet point now had milk written beside it.

“Perfect, let us continue.”

He brought the notepad and pen, then set them down to once again grab the glass measuring cup.

“Alright, how much water is it again? Oh yeah, I haven’t figured that out yet, aha.”

Looking at the box, he sighed in aggravation.

“What the fuck, why is it a fraction? Gold, can you multiply fractions?”

Gold squinted and looked to the side, he became a Pokemon trainer for a reason. The Creaturemon trainer groaned but then his eyes lit up.

“Actually…why are we even listening to this box anyway? We don’t need a dumb box telling us what to do, we are independent people, right Gold?”

His unsure look did not sway Grey in the slightest as he instead decided to speak more inspiring words.

“By your expression, I can see you may not agree, but listen, Gold,” he crouched down after setting the box on the counter and took the ex-trainer by the shoulders, “we are two of the coolest people in this entire world. Sometimes, roadblocks such as math and stupid instructions written by idiots may try to get in our way, but we must not be swayed. WE CAN DO THIS. SAY IT WITH ME GOLD.”

The not-corpse squinted at Grey.

“Fine, just use your unowns and spell it with me then.”

Unowns began to assemble and Grey happily began to exclaim, “WE CAN DO TH-”

“GOD, CAN YOU BOTH SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU IGNORANT PIECES OF SHIT.”

The trainers both jumped, one into the air while the other did more of a violent flinch, and whipped their heads around to see a very upset-looking Steven glaring at them from behind the couch. He always looked like that though, at least from Grey’s recent experiences. 

His head disappeared from view when he fell back into his position, going straight back to sleep. Grey watched and wondered why hadn’t he just slept in his room or something? But he thought he probably just didn’t trust the group not to run off with his stuff.

The two stared a little longer then slowly looked at each other and turned back to the counter.

“Let’s just keep going. But quietly.”

Gold nodded.

- - -

A large bowl, or the biggest they could find, was now filled pretty far up with the measured pancake mix and two and an eighth cups of water (It was necessary to be the perfect mix). And that was all the instructions said to put it in. Lame.

“Okay, the shitty instructions gave us a base, but now Gold, we take over this like chefs. Because we are, Gold. We are chefs.”

The ex-trainer gave a confident nod and they looked at all the food they had taken out of the pantry and fridge. Which was everything that was in the pantry and fridge.

“It’s sortin’ time, come on Gold let’s see what Steven’s vast selection of ingredients has given us to work with.”

They first dealt with the things that came from the pantry, picking up the bag of sugar and looking inside. Ants had gotten into it and created a home, it almost looked like someone mixed brown sugar and white sugar together or something. More brown than white though.

“Gold, you like protein?”

A mildly confused nod.

“Perfect, pour it in.”

Before the unowns could even spell out the ex-trainers question Grey spoke, hand out in a fist in front of him for dramatic effect.

“All of it.”

The ex-trainer knew no better and had his unowns do what Grey asked without hesitation. The unowns didn’t have perfect aim though, so some of the sugar spilled on the counter and Gold looked very unsurely at the little moving brown clumps that spilled as well. He looked away, only mildly reassured by the fact Grey had inspected it so it was, in his opinion, fine. 

“Perfect, now we have this flour here but I’m pretty sure that mix from the box already had that so we don’t need it. There are also all these powders like um whatever baking soda and powder is? Well, we aren’t making soda so we don’t need that but baking powder sounds important so dump some in.”

After adding that, Grey grabbed a rubber spatula and stirred it all together with aggression, sending dust everywhere. Gold coughed unable to turn much away from the bowl.

“Ah,” Grey sighed, “It looks exquisite already. What else was in the pantry!-”

The trainer looked at the kitchen island only to see the almost completely molded bread and a pastry that may have been a muffin or something in its prime. 

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH-”

“Shhhh.”

A moment of stuttering and then he was able to repeat once more, whispering this time, “What is wrong with him???”

With only a shrug from Gold, the unowns were already throwing those in the garbage; they started to take that garbage bag out the window before they stopped and set it down as Gold glared at them. They didn’t like it either, Grey guessed, but only stupid people litter so sadly the trash would be staying for now.

“Maybe he had cans or something that might be good?”

They had taken back out the soup cans that were almost stolen and stared at each one critically. Gold had his unowns tap on one of interest.

“Fucking pineapple? Really?”

A raised eyebrow with a glare had Grey set the can aside to be opened and used.

The Creaturemon trainer looked through all the soups, Pancakes could be savory after all, and a beautiful thing caught his eye.

“SPAGHE- shit. SpaghettiBalls!”

He smiled nervously at Gold who raised both eyebrows, unimpressed.

“I used to love these when I was younger! Ate them all the time. I swear they were called SpaghettiOs though, huh. Well, whatever, looks almost the same.”

The ex-trainer contemplated for a moment, trying to think if he had heard SpaghettiOs before, but gave up and drew it up to Grey being Grey. He still wasn’t over the Pokeball thing after all.

“We have to add them Gold, it’s for the nostalgia.”

Gold shrugged and grabbed it with the unowns, setting it down with the other chosen can. Grey gave a bright grin to Gold and giggles excitedly.

“Okay, okay, the pantry has satisfied me, now to check the fridge items.”

He turned to the side where the cold goods were set out. His smile immediately turned to a frown as he looked at the second gallon of “milk” and even some eggnog. At least, it looked like eggnog, for some reason the label was gone. And that was definitely worse. 

“Oh dear Shinto, what the fuck.”

Those went into the garbage bag as well, Grey chucking containers of fuzzy fruit mush to go with it. With a shiver of disgust, the trainer hesitantly looked back at the container for what else was left. 

Orange juice.

But it looked good. (Ignoring the multitude of ants floating at the top)

“Gold. Gold, it’s orange. Thank fucking shit it’s orange.”

He could have cried in that moment. He held back though, they had to make these pancakes after all.

“It’s the only thing from the fridge so we have to add it, rules are rules,” Grey shrugged and set down the jug next to the cans. 

They looked for a second at the leftover items, cans really. Gold spelled out a sentence.

You mix, I’ll put away the cans.

“Alright man, sounds good!”

Grey wheeled the ex-trainer away from the bowl, to which silently Gold was extremely relieved as he wouldn’t have mix in his face anymore, and set him next to the pantry. The two did their jobs, the Creaturemon trainer adding the entire can of SpaghettiBalls, half the orange juice, and two singular pineapple chunks. Sadly, an unown knocked his hand as he was carefully getting the two out, and suddenly most of the can was in the mix. 

With an annoyed and saddened groan, he mixed the batter together and noticed it was very liquidy. Weird. It was probably fine though.

He looked back at the couch, remembering Steven’s whole yelling at them thing, and suddenly he had an idea.

“Gold! I just thought of something. We should make it up to Steven by making him some ramen pancakes. I bet he would love it because of his strange-ass diet of the stuff.”

With a small silent snicker, the ex-trainer immediately passed over a cup of ramen.

“Thanks, man! I’m gonna make it first and I’ll separate that batter in a different bowl before I add it.”

A nod and Grey began to make the noodles. After putting the cup in the microwave with water in it he began to update the grocery list on the several things they would be needing. Including many more cans SpeghettiBalls. Maybe ant killer too, sometimes there was such a thing as too much protein. 

Meanwhile, Gold decided to check up on the other two while Grey was busy.

He called some of the unowns over to push his wheelchair but they found themselves unable to. Gold’s eyelids fell halfway in irritation but he called more over and once there was a good large group of them, they were able to push him. When he made it to the living room, it turned out that Shinto had found a new spot to lie.

Or a new person, in reality.

Steven was asleep, unknowingly providing warmth for the yellow rat-like Creaturemon as she was curled up on top of his back. She had brought a blanket with her too, she was wrapped up in it like a burrito.

Gold smiled warmly, it was nice to see she was also okay with the man. It was hard to tell what she thought sometimes, she didn’t talk as much as Grey did after all. Actually, that brought up one thing the almost-corpse had always questioned about the rat.

Why didn’t she say her name like most Pokemon did? She probably had the ability, I mean every Pokemon does. Also, where did her name Shinto come from, I mean she looked like a Hypno but really small and kind of…odd-looking for some reason. And she has that other form…Gold never thought about all that at once until now. 

“Gold! I’m done with the ramen, wanna help me finish the batters?”

He looked over at Grey who was turned away from him, putting the ramen down. More questions were created for him too, for example, Why didn’t he know what a Pokemon was when he owns one that literally walks around with him? I mean he has the stereotypical hat of a trainer and everything. 

A gasp was heard and the boy looked up to see the Creaturemon trainer looking with wide eyes at Gold. “BRO! How’d you get over there? Oh my gosh, you’re so smart, you used the unowns didn’t you? Incredible.”

A small smile came upon Gold’s face and he knew the answer to all that didn’t really matter right now. He could just ask later.

The hoard of unowns struggled and pushed the ex-trainer towards Grey.

“Look at this, it’s Stevencake mix, heh heh.”

There was a dumb smirk on the boy’s face when Gold looked up at him. It was then that the ex-trainer realized he really didn’t care if he ever got those questions answered so long as Grey was happy. 

If he was happy, then Gold was too.

- - -

Two bowls were beside the stove as Grey put the skillet on the stovetop.

“Now, it’s time for the best part. Cooking it! I’ve been told I’m a master at cooking things so we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Grey happily reached for a bowl but was stopped midway by an unown’s tap on the shoulder. 

“Yeah- OH MY GOSH GOLD I LOVE YOU.”

In front of Grey’s face, two unowns held his beautiful, glorious, delicious-looking container of cotton candy that Gold thought the trainer might appreciate putting into his pancakes.

“How did you know?”

Gold would love to take credit for having put a lot of thought into the action but Grey expressed very often and in many ways how much he loved that stuff so it wasn’t the most obscure thing to notice. Either way, the ex-trainer just closed his eyes with a slight head tilt and smiled.

“You’re awesome, man, thank you,” he said as he opened up the tub and dropped a large piece of fluff into the mix.

He stirred the batter one last time and watched in awe as the cotton candy disintegrated into the mix. Grey didn’t add any of the candy to the Stevencake mix as he didn’t think Steven deserved it yet.

The trainer turned on the stove, turning the knob to high. Why? You may ask, well that’s because stronger means faster, and Grey is very hungry. With his impeccable culinary skills, everything should turn out perfectly no matter what heat it’s on.

He started first with the regular batter and poured a bit of it into the pan. It spread around the entire pan and he decided to add a good bit so that it wasn’t too thin. Maybe everyone would just have one giant ass pancake then.

Grey and Gold’s eyes were trained on the pan that was cooking with a harsh hissing sound. Smoke began to arise from the pastry and Grey noticed something upsetting. The pancake was bubbling. 

“UGH, the bubbling thing is happening that’s so weird, man. It’s not supposed to fucking boil it's supposed to cook. What if we, like, smack the bubbles away?”

Gold had the unowns hand Grey a spatula and he squinted at the pan in disgust as he began to lightly whack the batter. It only caused some of it to spill out. 

“Damnit, this isn’t working,” Grey grunted out but decided the best course of action was to whack it harder. Of course, all this did was cause an abundance of the batter to explode out and hit the walls along with Gold’s face.

With a small scowl, he had the unowns forcefully drag the trainer away from the pan.

“AGH! GOLD, what are you doing? We have to save the pancakes, man.”

More unowns (how many did he have?) formed a sentence.

“It’s probably normal stop getting batter everywhere you idiot- HEY! I was just following my instinct alright?? But fine I’ll listen to you only because I don’t want to clean any more batter on the walls.”

Grey jumped and looked around realizing something. 

“Shit wait we have to clean this don’t we??? Fuckkkk.”

While the Creaturmon trainer grieved, Gold was focusing instead on getting a paper towel wet and having the unowns wipe his face of the batter. They weren’t very good at it though. Getting the paper towel off the roll didn’t really work so they put the whole thing in the sink and smushed that against the ex-trainer’s face.

 It was only when the smell caused Gold to sneeze that he remembered the pancake was still cooking and they needed to flip it. The ex-trainer angrily glared the unowns away and nudged Grey with a different one. The trainer turned and Gold looked at him expectantly.

“Oh, yeah I forgot about that part.”

Stepping forward with his spatula in hand, the trainer began to attempt to slide it under the pancake. It did not slip under, in fact, he couldn’t get it under at all.

“Uhhhh. Um. Gold, no need to panic but it’s. It’s stuck.”

The ex-trainer’s eyebrows creased but he looked down at the stumps of arms he had and looked back up at Grey with a sympathetic gaze that read “sorry man, you’re on your own”.

Grey looked back at the pancake which by even glancing at it looked overcooked but still not horribly burnt. Well, okay maybe it’s more a matter of opinion. The trainer knew that there was no way other than forcing his way to get it off the pan. He was rushed too because judging by the smoke pouring out from under and around the cake, the fire alarm might get set off soon.

A quick glance at the couch and he shivered. He did not need that right now.

With a new determination, he grabbed the pan handle with one hand and used the other with the spatula to shove his way underneath the pancake. It didn’t make it all the way through, but Grey could tell with a few more shoves he would be able to flip it. And so with some grunts and a few more drives of the spatula, the pastry finally came off, shooting some of the batter that was on the top to decorate the walls again.

It didn’t quite land back on the pan though, only half did. Grey struggled for a moment to get the rest on and ended up with two pancake halves cooking and a giant mess.

“Hmm…well whatever it’s good enough I guess.”

Gold shrugged, looking at the black pancake and smelling that horrible burnt aroma coming from it. Yeah, that would be Grey’s pancake, not his.

Grey ended up taking the pancake off of the stove after just a minute or so, but it was still a little overcooked on that side. He placed both sides on one of the plates they had taken out and put his hands on his hips proudly. 

“One down, four to go. And maybe more if there is extra.”

The trainer looked down at Gold, beaming, and Gold looked up, his face smudged in pancake batter, with a bright smile as well. 

The rest of the pancakes went just about as well as the first, not a single one ending up in one piece. Each one was burnt on one side, mostly because they continuously forgot about them and instead played hangman.

“No, Gold, guess the vowels first it’s the best move. It’s only three letters man, c’mon I believe in you!”

The not-corpse looked up at the cupboards where they had written their game with an expo marker. It came off if you used a paper towel but of course their first game they may or may not have accidentally used a sharpie. Now there was permanently a hangman that was just barely won with the word “poopy” as the answer. No, they weren’t mature. They didn’t hide it.

The smell of burning reminded them of the pancake.

“SHIT- Gold why can’t you tell me these things?”

He raised his eyebrows unimpressed as he watched the boy scramble over to the stove and begin practically attacking the pancake to get it off the pan. Neither of them could figure out why it always stuck but Grey has the idea it was probably the cotton candy. This was disproven when the Stevencake got stuck too. 

Either way, this was the last pancake and so as Grey put it on the final plate he cheered a slightly silent hooray. Over time he had been getting loud again, going from whisper screaming to almost a full yell. Nobody had woken up yet though, so it was alright.

“Ha ha! We did it Gold! I told you we didn’t need that dumbass box. We don’t have toppings though…OH! Hey, can you hand me the cotton candy?”

With surprise, Gold’s unowns gave him the tub and he put a piece in the middle of each of the pancake pieces. There was a significantly larger chunk on his own plate but the fact he had given everyone else even a little bit had made Gold proud anyway. Although, if he was honest he didn’t want any. It was still extremely expired.

Grey closed the tub, only having a little bit of it left, and immediately went over to the list.

“Well, I guess we have to buy a shit ton more of this then. I’ll add exclamation points next to its spot.”

The unowns took each plate over to a spot at the table and the two trainers walked over to their chairs.

“Ah, perfect, finally we get to eat them. Let’s wake up-”

His words were interrupted by the fire alarms screaming and the two quickly turned around to see the stove was still on and one of the pancake chunks left on the pans had fallen into the fire.

“SHIT-”

At the sound of a grunt from the living room though, Grey was distracted and the two boys whipped their heads toward the couch where a disgruntled Steven shot up. The beast had awoken from his slumber, and not in a favorable way judging by the snarl on his face and Creaturemon that hung from his shoulders behind him.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!”

“DUDE I WAS DISTRACTED BY-”

“DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT YOUR FUCKING EXCUSES?! NOW YOU BETTER GET THAT ALARM TO TURN OFF, OR IM GOING TO TURN IT OFF WITH YOUR FACE.”

Grey didn’t even know quite what that meant but he didn’t want to find out so he scrambled over to the stove and began opening all the cabinets in search of a fire extinguisher. After four, he finally found a mini extinguisher and snatched it. Standing up he saw the horrible fire and using his first instinct, he threw the can. He realized right after that was not the right move. 

The extinguisher bounced off the stove and hit the pan further away, allowing the fire more room to rise.

“Uhhhh-”

Suddenly he was shoved out of the way as Steven walked over, grabbed the extinguisher which he could only imagine was pretty hot from touching the fire and used it as it was meant to be. 

He sprayed the fire and Gold and Grey watched as it was snuffed of its life. Shinto was still clinging to the back of the long-haired man, partially obscured by said hair, and she looked back at them and waved good morning.

Grey gave a nervous smile and wave back, Gold only smiled.

Suddenly the man whipped around and stared down at the two. Damn, why did he have to be so tall? It actually makes him intimidating. 

A Nervous laugh escaped Grey’s mouth as he tried to think of something to say. Unowns handed him a plate of pancake, specifically the Stevencake, and he grinned and held it up to the man.

“Pancake?”

“...What is wrong with you?”

Silence ensued.

The Pokemon trainer grabbed the plate and walked to the table, setting it down.

Silently, Grey found his spot on the other side next to Gold who’s unowns wheeled him to the spot. Shinto finally got off of Steven’s back and sat down next to him but on the table instead of the chair.

After a few moments of silence, Grey began to speak.

“So, these are some pancakes we made. We got creative with them too, because we are cool chefs, and so yours is what I like to call a Stevencake.”

“A what-”

“It has ramen in it,” Grey said with a smile.

Steven stared at him. He had, of course, been pissed off by the rude awakening and having to put out a fucking fire, but he was annoyingly endeared by the boy’s actions. He had a feeling this was about to taste like shit though. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to yell at him or eat this and act like it was good. Maybe both.

He ended up cutting the pastry with his knife and hesitantly lifting up a piece to his mouth. It looked like there were a lot of very odd things in it, noodles sticking out left and right, and…he didn’t want to believe the specks were ants but he was pretty convinced. He shoved it in without too much thought so he was able to get this over with. 

As expected, noodles didn’t go well in the pancake, not to mention there were whole chunks of pineapple, a red sauce flavor, and orange too? But a strong sour flavor indicated something in there was probably rotten and the bitterness made the burnt state of it obvious. To top all of that off, it was so sweet, Steven wanted to die. It took everything in him not to gag at the horrible taste so instead, he began to speak.

“...Do you cook often?”

“Eh, not a ton. I was a pretty expert chef though, I think I’m a bit rusty aha. My skills may have dwindled a bit over the years but I think that fire was just a little um bump in the process,” he explained, nodding.

“...Maybe you should be retaught?”

“What do you mean?”

Steven glanced down at the panca- Stevencake for a moment and tried to think of a nicer way to word this. He considered just telling him it was shit but after looking up to see the innocent, hopeful, and slightly nervous look of Grey, he shut up. It didn’t help that Gold was also obviously looking over, even if he didn’t have pupils to show it. The same look was on his face too, damnit.

Slowly he began to speak.

“Well, this, um, Stevencake has a lot of potential but it was just a little…overdone. I can tell with some practice you two could be…really…good at this.”

Somehow, Gold and Grey didn’t notice the pained look in the man’s expression as he said all this and instead, they got excited, beaming.

“ARE YOU A COOK?”

Steven was unsure how the boy had jumped to that correct conclusion so quickly but the Creaturemon trainer looked incredibly excited at the prospect of this. Steven was hesitant though because he definitely could cook, but all he had been doing lately was ramen. He hadn’t had much motivation to do anything else. Either way, this would be better than waking up to fires. Probably.

“Yes.”

“Really!?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll teach us.”

“Yes.”

“REALLY!?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, but you have to promise to not cook without me until I’ve decided you perfectly regained your skills, alright?”

“YEAH! YOU HEAR THAT GOLD? WE’RE GONNA BE TAUGHT BY A PROFESSIONAL!”

Steven was not a professional at all but he didn’t feel like explaining that to the two very happy trainers in his kitchen.

He felt a tap on his arm and looked at Shinto. With a dubious smile, she raised an eyebrow in question. Steven had no desire to teach the rat too but It was obvious that even if he said no, she would be joining them anyway

“Fine.”

She let out a little squeaky cheer with her arms up, joined by Grey’s cheer as they all put their arms, or stumps, up. 

The Pokemon trainer put a hand on his face, already regretting his decisions.

Grey walked into the kitchen when they stopped celebrating and grabbed a notepad.

“Anyway, Steven I can tell you may not have been grocery shopping in a while so we will be going and doing the incredible favor of getting you food. I have written down a list of everything we need and I can tell all of us will starve if we don’t go soon so.”

Grey sneakily glanced at the kitchen and the giant mess it was. The foam from the fire extinguisher was all over the stove not to mention the giant mess the two cooks left from their little pancake adventure. He hadn’t tried any pancake but they would be waiting when they got home so, maybe if they all leave now, Steven will clean it.

“We’re gonna go! We’ll come back for the pancakes but heh don’t want to delay until rush hour! C’mon, guys let’s go.”

The trainer grabbed the wheelchair handles and Shinto jumped onto his shoulder. Gold looked up at him in question but he winked to say he had a plan and he quickly rushed them out the door.

“Wait, what the fuck, Grey-”

“BYE, STEVEN! MAYBE YOU COULD CLEAN WHILE WE ARE GONE? THAT WOULD BE GREAT HAHA.”

The door slammed shut.

At first, the Pokemon trainer only looked at the door to process what just happened but he looked over the kitchen only to see the state that it was in. The fire had distracted him, but seeing it now, it was obvious why Grey had been in a rush to leave.

Ignoring the stove that was covered in the foam of the extinguisher, the counter was covered in an assortment of powders along with empty SpaghettiBalls and pineapple cans. An empty orange juice jug sat on the counter next to the bowls, two separate ones. Upon further investigation, the smaller bowl had the Stevencake mix with ramen in it while the other was normal. Well, Steven looked at the counter once more then back to the bowl. 

Maybe not normal.

He groaned in anger but it ended up escalating to a yell. When he stopped he looked down at the kitchen and just turned around to grab the bag of trash they left and start with that. He would not be cleaning all of it, but truthfully they were getting groceries for him so maybe it made a little sense he helped a bit.

The Pokemon trainer stopped on his way to the door.

Wait a fucking second, Grey had been talking about getting groceries for all of them, and they would starve, and that implied- DID THEY PLAN ON FUCKING LIVING THERE???

At first, the trainer was highly pissed off at the notion, but he quickly realized he had been assuming that as well. Part of his teaching them reasoning was not waking up to fires.

He thought about the three idiots for a moment, thinking about how he had already done a lot more things than he had in months since they arrived. It distracted him from things like…things.

As much as Steven didn’t want to admit it, they had grown on him. So, maybe they could stay a bit longer.

Just a bit, a little bit.

They would leave eventually. Yeah. Definitely.

…

Wait a second, what are they paying with?