Work Text:
Should he have stayed home today? In hindsight, yes. From the moment he’d woken up he knew he was at risk of regressing, but he also knew that he'd worked through these days before. So the way he saw it there was no problem here. If he could make it through these days before he had a name to put to this feeling then he could make it through these days after the fact. But it couldn’t be that simple, could it?
Of course with the fact that in addition to him learning he regressed was his pokemon learning what these days really meant. Instead of them being a simple ‘off’ day for him where they’d step in if they saw things going a bit out of sorts, they now knew he was feeling more like a lil’ tyke on these days. Damascus in particular had become ever more aware of this and didn’t hesitate to take the lead on keeping him safe, the Excadrill having been with Clay since he was an actual tyke being a big factor in all this. And while most days he appreciated the help, the sun was just barely rising and he wasn’t planning to let himself regress this early when there was a whole day of work to be done. Unfortunately, Damascus had other plans.
As it was, he’d felt like his head was stuck in a cave at risk of a cave in. There was no way he was getting out of feeling somewhat regressed today, and any wrong move could make his situation worse. And Damascus had caught on immediately, much to Clay's chagrin.
“Damascus could ya back off ya worrywart?” he grumbled at his partner who was currently attempting to keep Clay from getting all he needed to leave for the day, his current hostage being Clay's phone. “Now gimme that back!” he shouted as he caught up to the bugger and wrangled the phone out from between his claws.
While sure it hadn’t taken much effort to do so considering Damascus’s lack of moveable fingers leaving him to balance it between his claws thus making him take his time and move slower so as to not drop the thing. The problem was that he had done it for nearly every item Clay needed for the day and it was starting to get on his nerves.
So before the pokemon could take yet another one of his belongings he returned Damascus to his pokeball. He hated using it as a way to end arguments but if that had gone on any longer there was no way he was making it out the door in any state to work.
So what if the cold cutting through him on his walk made him want to whine, or how he was sure that anyone who passed him on the street could somehow tell that he wasn’t feeling himself today. And sure he’d received some weird looks when he said his pokemon were in their pokeballs for a break today when one of the miners asked where they were. It was practically unheard of for Clay or his team to willingly take a break, but he’d take the looks of confusion over his team trying to coerce him out of the mines any day.
All he needed was a normal day, if nothing went wrong then he could make it through without fully regressing. But again, it really couldn’t be that simple on these days.
Small things like Damascus having held him up at home having made him late and throwing off his schedule internally, the discovery that a handful of Drillbur had burrowed a bit too close to the mines and ruined some of the recently cleared paths, and his pickaxe not being where he’d left it (though being able to give the worker who moved it an earful about never moving his things from their place made him feel a bit better). It was adding up and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take from today.
With everything piled up the breaking point in his day would have been when some whippersnapper had come to him looking for a gym battle and fought so unfair that even when Clay beat him (Damascus had taken to acting on his own near the end knowing how close Clay was to slipping at that point) he still wanted to kick and stomp his feet. But he kept it together enough to see the trainer off with a message to train harder and come back again when he was stronger, because it was the adult thing to do.
And if he took a minute to give his team a big hug while they recovered from the battle before heading deciding he should probably head home early, it was to make them feel better. Not because he needed something to make the ground stop quaking from how close he was to dropping.
But no, the breaking point in his day was the text he received right as he was making his way out of the mines, planning on heading right home so he could finally regress. It was a message from Drayden in the gym leaders group chat reminding everyone of the meeting they were having in Castelia city.
He had stared at the message for admittedly quite a long while. There was no way they had a meeting planned, Clay would have had it written down on his schedule and seen it this morning. But it hit him all at once as he realized that it was written down. He’d been so occupied in simply staying big today that he hadn’t thought to check his schedule and it had come back to bite him with enough force that he could feel the slight grip he still had on his adult headspace waver. Castelia city was the worst.
On a good day Nimbasa was tolerable, it was still all too loud and crowded for his tastes but he made it through when he had places to be. But Castelia ? However Burgh managed to run his gym with all that ruckus happening just outside was beyond him. Sure, Clay had development plans for Driftveil. But if it ever reached the same point that Castelia was at now, he was sure it’d be the end of him.
The thought of having to go to Castelia was downright terrifying on a day like today, but he knew there was no way out of this meeting. They were trying to deal with the rise of whatever this ‘Team Plasma’ business was and it wouldn’t do him any good if he were to back out last minute (Later on he would look back and realize he could have simply lied and said he didn’t feel good, but his regressed self had been to focused on his own discomfort around the city that the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind).
Dejectedly he made his way to Castelia, though Damascus tried to cheer him up on the way there. The Excadrill trying to play little games with Clay the best he could with his partner's worsening mood.
“Sorry Dama, gotta go back ta yer ball.” he apologized as they approached Castelia, kneeling down to press Damascus’s pokeball to his head and watched him get zapped inside. Almost immediately he wanted to release him again, feeling much more helpless without his support, but the thought of losing each other in the sea of people and pokemon assured him that this was the better option here. Plus he was sure whatever uptight building they were having their meeting in wouldn’t allow them to keep their pokemon outside of their pokeballs anyways, most private spaces in the city didn’t unless they were registered as support pokemon.
Though it did seem like lady luck was at least somewhat on his side as the streets were less crowded than they would be seeing as it was only 4pm meaning most people were still at their jobs. He decided not to linger on the thought of what they would be like after the meeting.
But soon after arriving and sitting down between Brycen and Cress, the two the least likely to try and start a conversation with him. He quickly realized that he should not have come to the meeting. Just as he shouldn’t have denied his team's help when he woke up, just as he shouldn’t have gone to the mines this morning as it was definitely not a safe place for someone who felt the way he did to be. Because there was absolutely no denying that he’d lost any grip on his adult headspace as he felt completely out of place right now. Any important conversation being had was way above anything he could contribute to right now, so he resigned himself to sit quietly and wait it out (Brycen did the same almost every meeting anyways, so why couldn’t he?).
And so when the meeting ended Clay didn’t bother sticking around. While the other gym leaders stuck around to chat he wasted no time in slipping away before anyone could try to start a conversation that was sure would give him away.
He tried to drown out the people once he was out of the building, focusing only on getting back to Driftveil and moving his hat down a bit to block them from view. But every bump against his arms from some city folk who were so used to being smashed together like a pack of Wishiwashi that no one noticed his growing distress was pushing him closer and closer to a full on meltdown.
“Clay!” Someone shouted, cutting through the boulders weighing down his mind as swiftly as Damascus’s claws tore through rocks in the mines. It was Elesa, her electric stare jolting him back to reality as she cut through the crowd without hesitation to reach him. “Let’s go back inside, okay?”
However small he felt left him in no position to speak, so he simply nodded and allowed her to lead him back into the building. And though he felt much better now that he had someone helping him out, things were still a blur as he struggled to fully recover from the fact that he had been on the verge of a meltdown only seconds ago.
Somewhere in there he could hear Elesa asking the lady at the front desk if there were any small meeting rooms they could use, and then they were moving again. Moving through a maze of hallways to get to wherever the lady had told Elesa to go.
She was quick to get him inside the room once they reached it, guiding him to sit on one of the chairs surrounding the large wooden table. “Just sit here, I’ll be right back. Promise.” she told him before heading back out the door.
And he tried, he really tried, to stay in the seat while waiting for Elesa to return. But it still felt like too much, even the small meeting room felt all too big for him. So he quietly slid down onto the ground and under the table, resting back against the wooden slab holding the table up in the middle. And for the next few minutes that’s how he stayed, curled up with his head resting between his knees trying to feel just any bigger than before. Elesa had gone out of her way to make him feel comfortable, so the least he could do was try to make himself less work to take care of right now.
But when he heard the door click open again, and Elesa calling out to him upon realizing he wasn’t where she had left him. All he could muster in response was to whine as he made the quick realization that instead of feeling bigger he only felt like everything was buried under a whole new layer of sediment that would take some time to mine through. He’d be regressed for a while it seemed.
He watched Elesa’s red and blue shoes walk over to the table and not too long after Elesa herself kneeling down to smile at him holding a water bottle from one of the vending machines they had passed earlier. “This a new tunnel you’re mining?” She tried to joke.
If he were in a better mood right now he would have had some sort of response, a jab at her attempt at a joke, or even a joke to throw back if he was in the mood. But he wasn’t so he looked away and shook his head no.
If he’d been looking he would have seen the sympathetic look she gave him as she lowered herself to the ground to slide over and sit beside him. “If I’m remembering correctly, someone.” she stuck out a finger and poked his nose in an attempt to get some reaction but he swatted her hand away, still looking anywhere but at her. “Hm, well again. Someone has already had a talk with Emmet about letting someone know when you’re feeling small. Am I right?”
He wanted to protest that he hadn’t been feeling completely regressed until the meeting, But he’d be digging his own grave by saying he had felt even slightly regressed since waking up and still went about his day as if it was fine and without even letting someone know. So he nodded, confirming what she said.
Elesa sighed and unscrewed the cap on the water bottle, passing it to him before continuing. “So… do you get why the rest of us have that rule in place now?” she asks and he once again nods.
Seemingly satisfied with that, Elesa drops the subject as they fall into a comfortable silence while he tries to regain his confidence to go back outside. Elesa sitting close enough to be comforting but not close enough to overwhelm him again.
“You feeling better, cowboy?” Elesa asks after a chunk of time has passed. “Ready to try and make our way out of the city?” Elesa asks him, and despite the fact that he’s still trying to work up to even getting out from under the table right now he almost says yes . Some voice in the back of his mind screaming that he’s taking too long, that she wants to get going, but he blocks it out and shakes his head no.
“Nu-uh, ain’t ready t’ go, sorry.” he mumbles.
“Don’t apologize buddy. It’s fine,” she says, and he knows that she truly means it as she wraps an arm around his shoulder, “we can stay as long as you need.”