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It was an unseasonably warm day on Mt Silver, so Red decided to take the day off training to lounge in his favourite cave with his pokémon. Pikachu, Espeon and Charizard were all amusing themselves with the eternal ‘what-will-happen-if-we-put-this-in-your-tail-flame’ game, Snorlax and Blastoise slept, and Red was giving Venusaur a long over-due massage. The snow really got to Venusaur, but he was too stubborn to accept defeat or much special treatment.
Red was so proud.
“Hey Red,” Gold’s voice called.
Red lazily raised a hand, waving slightly, before letting it drop back down against Venusaur’s back.
Rather than barge into the cave like usual, Gold hesitated at the entrance, twisting his bag strap. “So, um… can I stay here for a bit…?”
“I don’t own the mountain,” Red replied.
Gold jumped. He always jumped the first time Red spoke in any conversation. It was pretty funny, really.
“You kinda do, actually.” Gold walked in and promptly flopped on the ground, groaning. “Redddd, you’re an older, mature guy, right?”
Red snorted.
“Can explain why the hell Silver’s such a — a —”
Red waited for Gold to find the words because he didn’t know anything at all about Silver except ‘Giovanni’s son’, ‘tried to destroy Team Rocket but sucked at it’, ‘Gold has a massive crush on him, resulting in a lot of gay gushing I don’t really listen to’.
Gold gave a strangled cry. “So, just now, well more like three hours ago cos this mountain is hell to climb y’know even with your shortcuts, we had a double battle with Lance and Clair and he actually asked me to be his partner! Then when we won he got all huffy and turned away from me and started saying some crap about how ‘it wasn’t supposed to go this way’. But we won! So what the hell does that even mean?!”
“Silver’s fucked up?” Red guessed, toying with one of Venusaur’s petals.
Gold groaned. “I wish. By me.”
Red shrugged. “Green’s kinda like that too, so maybe it’s not a tortured ex-Rocket spawn thing?”
Gold stared. “No way Green’s like that!”
“After pretty much every battle I won he’d tell me I needed to practice more.”
Gold laughed. “But that’s just pathetic.”
Red raised his eyebrows. “At least Silver’s just denying how incredibly gay you two are.”
“We’re so gay,” Gold sighed. “One time he shouted at me for wearing a Team Rocket uniform — to infiltrate, y’know?! It was clever! He was shouting at me about how I can’t be strong and a part of Team Rocket, then he pulled my clothes off and after he realised what the hell I was trying to do he was playing it off with some crap about it being a ‘meek’ plan. Like I should’ve just gone charging in screaming at Team Rocket like he did.”
“The average Rocket is too stupid to notice anyway. You gotta walk right up to them.”
Gold huffed, mumbling something about a lack of appreciation for spy aesthetic.
Venusaur redirected his hands to the skin near his blub with a vine. “Yeah, okay,” Red mumbled to him, rubbing.
“Saaaaur,” he cooed appreciatively.
“Still, at least Silver tried to help,” Red mused. “At Silph Co, Green said he didn’t care about Team Rocket, he’d just been there waiting for me, then he got weird and demanded a battle, he wouldn’t let me past until we battled and he kept saying he didn’t care about Team Rocket or me just battling, then when he lost he said ‘smell ya’.”
Gold stared. “He didn’t try to help? At all?”
Red shook his head. “I think he wanted to but I caught up to him too quickly.”
Gold clearly wasn’t listening. “‘Smell ya’? Not even ‘smell ya later’?”
“Nope. Just ‘smell ya’.”
Shaking his head slowly, Gold looked away. “Okay, yeah, I think Green might be worse than Silv. At least Silv — I mean, Silv clearly just has issues expressing himself, not… being so bad at telling what’s right and wrong he does… whatever the hell you just describe.”
Red nodded.
Gold dropped a hand heavily on Red’s shoulder, meeting his eyes significantly as he seriously said, “Good luck to you, bro. You need it.”
Red mixed it up by nodding self-pityingly.
Gold stood up. “Right. I’m gonna go tell Silv to chill and date me.” He walked to the cave entrance, still speaking. “And if I see Green I’ll tell him to —”
“Tell me to what?”
Gold froze. Red turned to the entrance, excited. Green, rugged up like the diva he was, stared between them in confusion.
“Nothing!” Gold cried. “Good talk Red, I’ll —”
Green grabbed his arm. “Hey, we need a rematch now that you’ve beaten Red. Nice job with that. Anybody who beats the snot outta Red is cool in my books.”
“Okay I’m sure just don’t smell me!” Gold yelped. He pulled away. Red bit back a laugh. “We’re not battling now! You need to talk to Red! You need to —” He pointed at Red. “Smell him!”
With that, Gold ran. And Red started cackling.
Green turned to him with a weary look. “What’d you do, loser?”
“N-nothing,” Red laughed.
“What’d you say to him?!”
Red kept laughing.
“Yeah, well… Forget that! I’ve got a lot to accomplish, unlike you, so… so…” He pulled out a PokéBall, not noticing that it was very clearly empty. “Let’s battle!”
Red wiped the tears from his eyes. “Say what you mean or don’t say anything at all, Green.”
“Huh?! What’re you on about?!”
With a grin, Red beckoned Green over. “C’mon, dude. Smell me.”
Green threw the PokéBall in his face and stormed off, shouting about PokéDexes and being unstoppable all the while.