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Every time Kieran closes his eyes, he's right back there again.
Back underground, the air of the cave is alive, electrified, crackling with power, uncontrollable power. He feels the hair on the back of his neck bristle up all over again.
Terapagos’s light is blinding, flashing and flickering in so many colors he needs to cower behind his arms to not get dizzy. The thundering crash of rock splitting open nearly knocks him right over. His arms open just enough to see between them;
stray beams of limitless energy exploding off from the thing like fireworks, ricocheting off the crystalline walls and firing at him, right at him—
Kieran lurches upright, clutching at his stomach where the psychosomatic impact hits him. He’s gripping his sleep shirt so tightly it takes him a moment to realize that it doesn’t hurt at all. He’s on the brink of hyperventilating, arms shaking and sweating buckets before he blinks harshly a few times and his eyes adjust to the darkness. He’s on a bed, in his dorm, with blankets bunched up on his lap, safe and above ground.
Right. They just got back to the academy mere hours before in the day, he and his sister both agreeing to check in way early to sleep off everything that happened prior. It takes another moment to realize that he still hasn’t slept a wink and he slams his head back down on his pillow, groaning through his teeth.
Great. On the one night where he needs it more than anything.
Kieran wonders if this is hubris for all of the months he’d spent in the Terrarium, training nonstop into the night until the artificial sun had risen and fallen at least ten times. He wishes one of his pokémon knew Hypnosis, or maybe even Sucker-Punch (he knows Grimmsnarl does, anyway), so he could ask them to knock him right out.
Before he can feel compelled enough to get up and dig through his TMs, he resigns; that’s too much effort for his sleep-addled brain to handle and he doesn’t want to use a pokémon for anything, not anymore. Frustrated tears burn at his eyes and he wonders if it’d be worth it to try and cry himself to sleep. Given the months-worth of bottled up tears he bawled out of himself just the day before, he decides not to risk a migraine either. His mind desperately reaches out to anything that can be an outlet and it doesn't take long to think of someone just down the hall.
Kieran hesitates, staring up at the ceiling while he mulls over what to do. He can’t just go see her now, can he? Even after everything? He feels like he’s known his sister long enough to read her cues, to know when and why she’s angry and how to anticipate it. He’s sure that everything he let slip during his spiel while trying to wrench Terapagos out from that crystal is enough to make her annoyed with him for a week. Heck, maybe even a few months, to make it even for his own acting out. He thinks so, anyway.
Maybe she might be angrier if she sees him in the morning when he hasn’t slept, when she sees the bags under his eyes only getting darker and his hair even more unkempt, only staying upright in a ponytail that tugged harshly at his scalp. Maybe she’ll only berate him even more for not reaching out when he could have. Maybe she’ll spend the next night worrying herself sick that she wasn’t able to help. Kieran finds himself realizing beyond all else that he misses her, misses when she would be vulnerable and small with him.
That was something shared between the two siblings, something meant just for them; how vulnerable they could be with each other. Her sensitive side is one no one else ever gets to see, not in its entirety anyway. It’s a special side of her that only comes out when it’s absolutely necessary. He thinks surviving a near-death experience might just be one of those times.
With all the strength he can muster, Kieran sits up, tosses the blanket to the side, and pulls himself to his feet. He hopes to himself that Carmine won’t mind the intrusion, kicking on a pair of slippers and slowly making his way to the door.
~
Carmine has a method for everything. Every day, her morning routine is the same— she wakes up at (around) seven o’clock sharp, checks her Rotom Phone for more-or-less than five minutes, then actually gets out of bed. Her desk belongings are always neat in the morning and scattered in the afternoon, then she tidies them up all over again at night.
Her nightly routine is the same as well— She picks her sleepwear (always fuzzy pants and a baggy short-sleeve at school, casual jinbei back home in the summertime. Tonight’s choice of pants has Hoppip patterns on it), washes her face, brushes her teeth and gets into bed with a book to read, in that order. Before that, though, she checks the trash bin and takes it downstairs if it’s full. The new custodian has gotten on her bad side for incessantly checking up on her for that, even when it’s not needed— it’s borderline intrusive, if you ask her. Plus, it gets in the way of her self-imposed schedule.
That’s why it annoys her as much as it does when she hears a rapping knock-knock-knock on the door. Carmine groans loudly, hopes to god he didn’t actually hear that, and hauls herself out of bed in a huff. She figures he's lucky she’s as tired as she is, because she only has enough energy to annoyedly open the door instead of almost throwing it off its hinges.
“Yeah, I took the trash out already,” she yawns, not bothering to open her eyes, leaning against said door with one arm.
“Did my laundry, too.”
She assumed he would at least be a little impressed because there’s a weird lack of response. Carmine wills her eyes to open and does a double-take, blinking the bleariness out of them when she sees not the stark-white of a custodian’s uniform, but messy, black-purple hair barely kept together in a flimsy upright ponytail. In front of her stands a skinny young boy with her same eyes, clad in a striped button-up pyjama shirt and pants, wringing his hands nervously.
“Kiki?”
Carmine blinks again, now alert. Her voice is still scratchy with sleep, yet she straightens herself up, giving him her full attention. She hasn’t seen her little brother at her dorm in…well, way too long, if you ask her. It's not like he was a frequent visitor at her room, not like back at home, but it wasn’t uncommon either. Normally he’d bug her about menial things, like asking how the vending machine works or answers on a quiz, and she realizes then how much his absence at her dorm made something feel missing from her life at school.
“Hey— what’s wrong?” Carmine prods immediately. She knows it’s not usual for him to be here now, and already knows it has something to do with everything that happened earlier in the day, even if he won’t say so from the start.
Kieran shifts his weight, one leg wraps behind the other and the back of his foot rubs up and down his ankle.
“Uh… I don’t— I don’t really know. I mean, nothing happened, but,” he stammers, already starting to fidget with his fingers.
“Kiki,” Carmine intones, raising an eyebrow. “No more secrets, remember? Talk to me.”
No more secrets.
Right, they promised. On their flight home, they sat next to each other, holding hands so tightly on the armrests they both felt they almost cut each other's circulation off. It took only one stray shot of uncontrollable Tera energy for the pair of siblings to nearly be torn apart for good, and they both swore up and down to themselves that they’d never let anything lead up to something like that again; no more secrets, no more hiding their feelings.
Kieran stands up straight as well (as straight as he can with his posture, anyway) and does his best to look at his sister directly.
“I, uh… can't sleep,” he confesses, avoiding her eyes. He nervously brings one hand up to his mouth without realizing while the other rhythmically bumps his thigh. Carmine studies him patiently.
“And I want to ask…I mean, I wanted to…” he huffs, frustrated, and buries his pride. “Could I sleep in your room tonight?” He blurts out at last, arms dropping to his sides as he slumps over to hide his face. Carmine’s eyes soften and she tilts her head, considering him for a moment. Then she breathes a laugh, like that’s the dumbest question she's ever heard.
“Of course you can,” she says with a warm grin. “Come on in.”
Kieran blinks and looks up, surprised that she didn’t hesitate more. Of course, why would she? She’s his sister. How could he doubt her, even after everything? Guilt starts to creep up in his throat and he swallows to keep from choking on it.
The willowy girl stands aside for him, pressing the door wide open with her back, inviting in the warm hallway light as well. Kieran meekly ambles his way in and politely kicks off his footwear in the tray, like he’s just been invited to a stranger's place. Except nothing about Carmine’s dorm was unfamiliar. He’s found himself here whenever he needed a study buddy for an upcoming test, and it’s about the same as his own away. Yet, he may as well have been a stranger himself these past three months. His guilty heart throbs again. Kieran tries to reason why she didn’t pause for a moment to not let him back in again before she pipes up—
“Oh! Hold on,” Carmine blurts, darting off to her storage closet past the kitchenette. It takes only a second for her to get it open and come right back out with a bag full of vacuum-sealed softness.
“I actually have a spare air mattress just in case. You can use it, if you want,” she explains, and Kieran blinks because of course, of course she does. When has she ever not prepared for anything? Just in case…of what? If her brother somehow had a bad dream about a near-death experience and needed her company to feel safe? Kieran realizes he wouldn’t be surprised if his sister is actually a psychic-type clairvoyant in disguise.
“Ugh. Right, it’s not inflated yet,” Carmine pouts, crossing her arms. She then smirks and looks to the side.
“But I know who can help!”
Methodically as ever, she turns and walks to her bedside dresser, opens the uppermost drawer and fishes out the exact pokéball she’s looking for. In a flash she pops it open, her bedroom aglow with a bright white light for a moment, then the form of a Toucannon stands between them. Kieran watches on in silence. As his eyes adjust to the darkness again, he sees its black feathers are ruffled and it's squinting more than usual, looking like it’s been very rudely woken up. Carmine clasps her hands together, one over the other that still holds its ball.
“Okay, Toucannon!” she pipes up.
“Sorry about this. I’ll put you back in a second, I just need your help with something.”
Her dark hair shrouds her face as she crouches down and she quickly blows her bangs out of her eyes when she looks up. Toucannon watches her, still disgruntled, and tilts its head. Pale fingers pinch around the air mattress’s nozzle and she holds it up clearly so it can see. Carmine makes sure her pokémon partner is still watching as she breathes deeply into it to demonstrate. Only once though, because the mattress springs to life for just a moment before crumpling back into a pile.
She brings the nozzle to the avian creature’s beak. Toucannon looks down at the mattress, then up again, unblinking. Kieran can almost see the Is this really what my life has come to? written on its face, and he fails to stifle a giggle.
The bird pokémon then shrugs, resigned to its fate, and takes the nozzle in its beak.
“Good girl!” Carmine chirps, getting up to fetch a spare blanket and pillow. Kieran finds himself almost hypnotized watching the colors on Toucannon’s beak, brightening and fading with each drawn-out breath. He thinks to himself;
Wowzers, they really work well together, huh?
His smile drops a bit. Kieran can’t remember the last time he did anything pedantic like this with his own team. He’s only ever brought them out for endless battling and training. He wonders if they miss their old lives in the wild, free to run and play, and if they might resent him for taking that all away. He hasn’t been fair to them, to anybody. Why is Carmine even bothering with this? Once more, guilt stings in his chest.
Again, his sister brings him back to earth. There’s another brief glimmer of light when she bumps Toucannon’s ball gently on its head, and in a flash it’s gone again. He realizes there’s already a pale white comforter and soft pillow carefully set up on it, which he figures must’ve happened while he zoned out.
Carmine leans down again, patting the uncovered part of the mattress with one arm and shoots a glance up at him, prompting him to feel it himself. Kieran numbly ambles over to his temporary bed, doing what he's silently told. The bed itself is nothing special, stiff and Cottonee-soft, warmed by the slightly thermal energy from the air inside. If only he didn’t have feelings to talk about, Kieran would’ve gladly let himself sink into the toasty mattress and get swallowed up by the blankets right then and there.
“Here— wanna hold him?”
She's got something else again. He looks up to see his sister holding something in her other arm; her prized Sparcey, the Dunsparce plush, love-worn and fuzzy from years of cuddles. If there’s another thing only Kieran knew about his sister, it’s that Sparcey was hers. Whenever they traveled abroad, she always made sure it was the first thing she packed, and he can’t remember a time in their lives when she didn’t have it on hand somewhere at home. So when she hands it to him, for what feels like the first time ever, he holds it carefully like it’s a sacred artifact. It’s unbelievable enough to him that he asks;
“Are you sure?”
She nods. “Just for tonight. And make sure you don’t drool on him, alright?”
To even briefly give up ownership of Sparcey…him being here must mean a really big deal to her, and the thought doesn’t help his guilt any. Carmine neatly folds herself when she sits on her legs in front of him while Kieran sits crumpled and slouched, absent-mindedly picking at the stitching of the plush in his hands. There’s a pause before she speaks;
“Okay, talk to me.” She’s straight to the point, as always. “What’s wrong?”
Kieran glances up, meeting her eyes for a second before looking down again. His first instinct always said to choke down his feelings and run, hide before the dark truths of his ugly emotions come flooding out of his mouth, ruining everything again. But Kieran is cornered now.
For three months, he’s been running away, hiding from the truth, snarling and lashing out at anyone trying to pry it out of him like a Liepard with a thorn in its paw. Even if he completely changed his mind right then and made a mad dash for her door, Kieran knew that his arm would end up in his sister’s unmoving iron grip before he could even manage five steps. There’s no choice— his bottle of feelings needs to open again, all the way this time.
He opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. Carmine gives in and prompts his again, knowing he needs to handle the rest of this himself;
“Is it about…y’know…earlier?”
Kieran looks up, mouth still half open, and manages a nod.
“It’s, um… earlier, yeah. And everything else too, I think,” he mumbles, looking down again. He picks nervously at the blanket between his crossed legs with one hand, holding Sparcey to the side in the other so he doesn’t worry away at it instead. The pictures flood back into his mind— violent lights, violent, flashing lights. Aimed at him, aiming for him. His little hand clutches the bedding tightly to steady himself, already hearing his breath shake. He presses on;
“And, I mean…even after everything, I’m s-still bugging you for stuff.”
Carmine blinks, startled. She leans forward.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m only here right now cause I was upset that I couldn’t sleep, but I woke you up for that…” She isn’t able to mention that she was already awake before he continues;
“I just dunno why you’d wanna bother with me still, after everything… I wouldn’t like me at all, if I were you…”
“Oh, don’t you start with that!” Carmine snarls. Kieran flinches.
“Of course I would, I like you! What kind of big sister would I be if I didn’t?!” Her pupils narrow into frustrated slits, gritting her teeth. She grabs his cheek with the vice-grip of a Pinsir and Kieran’s eyes scrunch closed in mild discomfort.
“You’d— you’d be surprised,” he retorts through a pinched face.
Carmine pauses at that, her grip softening. “Yeah?” She just as quickly lets him go, her hand drops in a much gentler motion and she leans back again.
“It's just, y'know… the kids at home, they’d talk a lot about not liking their siblings.” Somehow he curls into himself more, growing more ashamed with every word.
“And— I’d worry about that a lot…”
Carmine’s eyes widen and her chest feels tight.
“Kiki…” she admonishes, almost breathless. In the quietness of it all, Kieran almost swears he can hear her heart snap in two.
“Do you really think I don’t like you?”
The pause that follows is deafeningly silent. Kieran can't answer that. He just can’t. The blood in his ears rumbles like thunder and hot tears well in his eyes. His chest aches. He bites his lip and looks down, his vision already too blurred to keep looking at her.
“…I don’t know,” he chokes out, voice squeaky. Carmine waits for him, ever so patient, even if her heart only hurts more every second without an answer.
“I mean, I worry about it, and— and I don’t always know, but—“ Before he knows it, his nose is running and he can’t get the right words out anymore.
“I was so stupid, I s-said such nasty things, to— to everyone. And you, too, like that you didn’t care, but… I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know. I’m really sorry…”
His shoulders shake and his face is hot and wet with tears. He angles his head down, hiding behind the unfurling canopy of his messy hair, as if his sister can’t already see his obvious distress.
Finally, fed up with watching, she lays her crossed legs down, flat and open and spreads her arms out for him.
“…Alright, c’mere.”
Kieran gapes at her, eyes glossy with emotion, and he slowly leans forward. Carmine reaches an arm around Kieran’s back and she pulls him towards her, bringing his head to her chest. Lengthy arms secure around him and she scoots him up in her lap, holding him close. She suppresses a shudder when he readjusts himself and she feels snot trickle onto her right shoulder. Yet, her personal icks can wait, and she finds it doesn’t matter that much when it comes to her baby brother.
Though, the one impulse she does give into is untying his ponytail when his headband is a breath away from completely falling out. Kieran’s frizzy hair falls ungracefully over his face and Carmine tries to smooth out the knots in the back of his head, using the hand that still holds his hair tie.
“I do like you,” she speaks softly, slowly— a tone specially reserved for him. Instinctively, she’s already gently rocking the two of them side-to-side. It only makes Kieran’s heart ache more.
“Really, I do. I wouldn’t look after you if I didn’t,” she cracks a small smile, hoping he gets the half-joke. He presses his face into her, doing his best to stop the inevitable tears.
“I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
Kieran grits his teeth, chokes on his own breath and sobs loudly, his resolve finally breaking. His chest heaves and his voice breaks into a high-pitched whine. His hands grip tightly at the hem of her pyjama shirt. The guilt is suffocating now, and his breaths are choppy and sputtery when he tries to speak again;
“But— but that’s not fa-air!” He wails in protest. His breath wracks his ribs as he sniffles through sticky fabric. Still, she waits for him.
“You’re always looking after me and— and n-no one’s doing that for you!”
She considers his words, and her chest feels a little bit lighter. After all this time, he’s still Kieran— meek, kind, soft-hearted Kieran. He’s selfish as any child is and his ego bruises like a peach, he curses the world when he’s upset and promptly hates himself for it after. Because above all he cares so much, too much not to get hurt, to not get angry. Their grandmother has this weird saying;
Be careful where you pour your heart out, else it’ll get poked by your ribcage.
Carmine never found it applied to anything other than an arbitrary warning for her brother; she never heard Grandma say that unless she was speaking to Kieran, after all. She figured it was supposed to get him to stop crying too much over things he couldn’t fix, like a lost postcard or someone else’s broken pot. She thinks of when she first noticed the bags under his eyes and finally gets what she meant; The Ogre wouldn’t take him, and They couldn’t either. That was his heart getting popped by the sharp bones in his chest, bleeding silently with no one to patch up the hole.
Of course, not wanting to cut his hands trying to mend himself, he let his heart fester and rot like an unloved fruit. He became bitter, sour and tough.
Maybe he was hoping They would fix it, when they arrived, that it would all be better if he could just finally beat them in battle. Or maybe if he scared everyone off it would mend itself on its own. Clearly, neither option worked out.
She hopes he’s learned by now to not push help alway before that bites him even harder. These past few months should have certainly taught him that, anyway. She’s sure to give his ear a good pulling if he ever acts up again, just in case.
She knows his tears are a good sign, knows that he still cares, still cares for her. He always has, even if he stupidly pretended not to, it so-clearly hurts him to admit that he did so. No one can ever escape the nagging care of an older sister, it seems.
“I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”
His shoulders jump with every rackety breath. She listens to him sob, a little quieter now, and feels a bit stupid herself— of course their pain is shared, how could it not be? No matter how far apart they seemed to drift in the stormy waves of verbal communication, of ever flip-flopping love and frustration, they’d always find each other’s signal flare. They’re both lost at this sea together, after all. Carmine squeezes him firmly, hoping to tell him she knows she’s loved, she’s okay, and hopes he feels the same.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she soothes, rubbing his back with almost instinctual gentleness.
“I am being looked after, Kiki. Don’t you worry.”
She thinks of long nights spent in the club room, pouring her heart out to Amarys, who always waited as if she had all the time in the world, just for her. They’re weirdly fond memories now, she finds. Amarys is her rock, in many ways— steady and unchanging. Even her stilted attempts at comfort never failed to get a laugh out of Carmine, no matter how long she’d spent stressing to her. It seems her punctuality could always wait for her, and the thought makes her feel warm. Lacey and Crispin heard her out too, sharing in her frustrations. While Lacey was offering the kindest logistical approaches to her problems, Crispin helped give her the emotional kick she needed to not wallow in self-pity and helplessness. And Drayton…is a different story. But he looks out for them all in his own Drayton-way, even if Carmine doesn’t always see it like that.
Kieran doesn’t seem to know any of that, though. He pries himself from her shoulder, just enough to shyly bring his arms around her neck in a hug of his own, considerate enough to angle his face away from hers.
“It’s not right…” he sniffles, still managing to speak through his sore throat.
“I j-just keep taking and taking, and—“
“Kiki, relax, it’s fine, really!” Carmine reassures. Kieran finds this is the one time he's grateful for one of his spiels getting interrupted.
“I wouldn’t have let you in if I didn’t want to help you.”
She threads his hair between her bony fingers, feeling his back rise and fall against her other arm as he slowly steadies his breathing.
“I’m happy if you’re happy,” she continues, saying it so simply it takes Kieran by surprise. He hums in acknowledgment, unsure of what else to say.
“I’m also happy that I’m here right now, at school.”
“R-Really?”
She nods.
“Yeah, it’s weird, right? Me, happy at school? I mean, I’m not happy about the school, I guess. But I’ve met a good group here, I’m happy to know them.”
Kieran hums again, thinking of the Elite Four. She doesn’t mention Them, but he figures that’s also who she means, anyway. Before he spirals again, he makes a quip to cover for it;
“Even Drayton?”
Carmine smiles and shrugs nonchalantly.
“Sometimes. VERY rarely.”
While confident in her snark, the quietness that follows has her start to think about just why Kieran would feel that remorseful— guilty for being defensive, being abrasive, using language as a cover-up for vulnerability, just like….
Carmine’s own worries start to gnaw at her. She moves to hold her little brother impossibly tighter, angling her face on top of his head. It’s ironic, she thinks; the two siblings haven’t ever been particularly touchy-feely with each other, at least not outside of their private moments of strife. If anything, Carmine was the one always dragging Kieran by the arm everywhere, and even then the idea of hugging casually made them both feel stiff and awkward. That’s why she finds it funny that now she’s starting to hate the idea of ever letting him go.
They both simply sit tangled together on the little makeshift bed, content to keep swaying slowly and listening to each other breathe. Absentmindedly, Carmine presses a soft kiss to his temple, something she’d normally never think to do in a million years. There’s no sign that Kieran even notices other than the relaxed sigh he breathes afterwards. In their silence, some lingering tension still hangs in the air. It takes only a second of self reflection for Carmine to figure out how to dispel it; if he's gonna talk, she should, too. God knows they’ve got boat loads of unsorted baggage by now.
“And… about you saying all that mean stuff,” she nervously rubs her thumb up and down the small of his back, both to calm him and herself.
“You didn’t get that from me, did you—?”
Kieran freezes up. There's another pause, this one feeling like it lasts a millennium. The guilt hits Carmine heavy in her gut as she finally understands. There’s a jump in his breathing when he tries to gulp down another sob from spilling out, his shame only confirms it more. The silence is the only answer she needs. Of course. She clears her throat before she speaks.
“For— for what it's worth…I’m sorry, too.”
Carmine finds that now she’s the one fighting off crying, struggling to push her voice out from a choked-up throat. She starkly angles her head up, staring a hole at the ceiling as the beginnings of tears start to burn at her eyes. She hopes the burning will fade after a while, no matter how much it hurts to crane her neck, but finds it just doesn’t. Well, fine— if it’s feelings that her body wants her to spill, so be it.
“You could’ve— back there, I mean—“ It’s a battle to even manage the first few words. Her voice is tight and stiff and she desperately gasps for air like a Magikarp out of water. Despite how much she’s learned to cry silently, Kieran doesn’t need to look up to already know she looks a mess by now.
“I could’ve lost you for good.”
Carmine hadn’t directly been in harm's way, but she feels she understands at least half of Kieran’s fear in that moment. She remembers briefly feeling her stomach drop to the ground, more terrified than she’s ever been in her life, and all for only a fraction of a second. The beam was intercepted, he was okay. Well, not okay, but alive. Her shoulders were tense then, ready to spring into action to block it herself. Presently, she’s still just as alert when she holds him, tense and protective. She continues;
“And— and it was already scary when you wouldn’t talk to me, but...”
She doesn’t sob like Kieran does, but the air in her lungs gets caught in a hitch and looking straight up proves to no avail. The first few tears start to roll down her cheeks and her lips purse into a tight line to push her voice back down. She squeezes him again, and hopes it’s enough, hopes she can say I love you, I’m sorry in every little wordless way she can. She hopes this moment can make up for all of the years he's spent not hearing it from her. The two siblings let the rest of their tears fall without a word, holding each other like it’s the end of the world.
“I know— I know I didn’t really talk about it, b-but…”
Kieran speaks up at last. It's a struggle to push past the final wave of tears fighting to spill out of him, but he persists, his voice small and wounded. He closes his eyes and sees the lights— he shudders tensely.
“I was really scared…”
“I know, I know,”
Carmine repeats like a mantra, because this time she does know. All this time she’s pretended to understand half of his interests and fears on a surface level, quick to dismiss anything she didn’t immediately get. Not this time.
“I was r-really, really scared…”
The words stumble out of him between his remaining sobs, near breathless, and he goes fully slack in her arms. She readjusts her hold on him, hooking one arm tighter around his back while she cradles his head in the other. Kieran can’t help but tremble as he cries again, perhaps feeling smaller than he ever has before. She swears to herself then that she will never allow Kieran to get that caught up in his own head like that again— Not have himself nearly die to learn not to throw himself away. Never again. Never, ever again. Carmine hushes him with a gentle hand through his hair and quiet I know’s until the shaking stops.
Eventually, Kieran finds the confidence to look up again, and he once more slightly pushes away from her. Which is relieving, because she was starting to wonder if he could even breathe with how hard she was pressing him against her. His vision is still blurry, but he thinks he can see Carmine managing a kind smile, despite the tiredness in her eyes. He feels warm.
Nervous still, though, and he doesn’t keep eye-contact for very long. His hands move to fidget at the buttons on his shirt, the ex-champion suddenly feeling embarrassed for crying his eyes out to his big sister.
“…D‘you think I’ll get laughed at tomorrow?” He mumbles, sniffling impolitely. Neither of them mind.
“Hm?”
Carmine hums thoughtfully to parse the sudden change in subject.
“I mean, because I lost so badly and all, in front of everyone…
She pauses to process what he says, then quickly scoffs.
“Kiki, please, they’re high-schoolers. So long as you don’t know them, they forget anything that happens by the next week. Well, mostly…”
“B-but… I was champion for so long, and then…”
She tilts her head and puts a hand on his shoulder. It's always been easy to shrug off his worries, the ever-paranoid boy that he was, but Carmine finds herself really wanting to listen now.
“Listen, if anyone gives you gruff, I’ll just show them how we like to say hello in Kitakami.” She smirks, eyes narrow as she holds up her other hand in a shaking fist. Despite Kieran’s hair hiding the rest of his face, Carmine sees the corners of his mouth twitch up ever so slightly. Her little brother moves to hug her again, this time around her waist, still careful to turn his head away. He does his best to return one of her reassuring squeezes, albeit much weaker than hers.
“Thank you,” he speaks just above a whisper, voice nearly gone. His eyes close contentedly, no longer afraid to share his deepest feelings with her, no matter how raw or ugly or embarrassing they are. Which is why he’s then so quick to say—
“I love you.”
Carmine laughs, bewildered. “You haven’t said that since you were six!”
“Just felt like it,” Kieran leans back, finally smiling.
“You were counting?”
She shrugs again before she speaks;
“I mean, me too— what you said, but like, at you and not me,” she stammers, doing her best to be as indirect as possible. Kieran doesn’t buy it.
“Just say it.”
She sighs, exasperated, and lets him go. She props an elbow up on her knee and drops her chin into her palm before speaking;
“I love you too,” she forces through grit teeth, not without a smile of her own. She watches fondly as her little brother’s cheeks stretch from one of his signature wide grins.
“Even if you get snot all over my pyjamas,” she adds. Kieran giggles softly.
“Now go to sleep,” she orders, standing up. She makes no comment on the sticky spot on her shoulder and Kieran wipes his nose on his sleeve. He finds he’s left sitting with an unfamiliar feeling. He feels empty, but not hollow— His chest feels light and airy, no longer stuffed with swallowed regrets, like he’s been finally freed of an unseen weight holding him down.
Kieran scoots back a bit to free the comforter from his legs, pulling it over himself and bringing it up to his chin under one hand, holding Sparcey close in the other. His hair splays out onto his pillow and he thinks to brush it tomorrow morning (he hasn’t done that in a while, he notices).
Methodically, Carmine makes her way to her desk, sets Kieran’s headband next to hers (it’s easy to tell the difference; Kieran’s is scrunched and crumpled up, Carmine’s lays straight and flat), gets to her bed and swings her blanket over herself in one swift motion. She compensates for the lack of Sparcey to hold by bundling up an armful of bedding and tucking it under her jaw.
“G’night, Kiki,” she yawns, making sure her head is propped up just enough so she doesn’t just mumble it into her pillow. She hears a vague mumble from him which she reasons is him saying Night.
It's a good thing tears are effective at making one’s eyes heavy, otherwise Carmine might’ve found herself scrubbing at them for a good ten minutes, interrupting her usual schedule even more. She doesn’t need to read anymore, content with how thoroughly exhausted she is, and hopes Kieran can sleep easy now as well. It doesn’t come immediately for her, though—
Something compels her to stay up, just in case, to keep an ear out for him. She thinks they’ve gotten three-quarters of their sad feelings out and done with, but it’s never usually that easy— even if they’re healing, the wounds they have now might yawn open again at any time, and there may always be a dull ache in their chests somewhere.
That’s why it hardly comes as a surprise when Carmine hears his watery breaths kick up again from just next to her on the floor. Kieran feels he still has so much to apologize for— Ogerpon, Terapagos, Them especially. For his sister, who he feels has always put up with him too much, all for him to resent her for that in the end.
He figures he may as well be apologizing for the rest of his life to everyone he's ever known to make up for it. His sobs are tired and defeated, drained of energy— the final remaining aftershocks of his catharsis. He doesn’t want to, but he knows he needs to cry. He doesn’t want to, it’s scary and it hurts, but he's not alone anymore, is he?
She wants to go to him again. She can’t.
Kieran needs this, she thinks, it’s only healthy for him to cry it out on his own. I do it too. It’s normal. She can’t always swoop in and fight his own fights for him, as much as it kills her not to. As much as it’s killing her to not get right back up and scoop him up into her arms and shush him until he goes to sleep without strife.
He needs to grow on his own, needs to learn it’s okay to cry by himself, that he won’t be punished. That he can pick up the pieces by himself, and it’ll be okay.
She can’t do that for him.
Carmine clutches her pillow tightly and curses to herself. It’s inevitable. The realization hits her like a stone; she can’t stop it from hurting— she can’t stop Kieran from feeling hurt, from being hurt. It’s her lone duty, the one thing she’s prided herself on being the best at her entire life after he was born, and then what became of her?
Kieran needs to grow, to explore and learn. He needs to be out of her hold one day to be able to see the rest of the world— the world that can and has hurt him and might do so again. He’ll climb a hill and stumble down it and learn that he can hurt himself if he's not careful. She wishes she could just hold his hand all the way up, before he can even start.
But she was always holding him too tightly, so much that it was suffocating. He writhed and hit-out and yelled to get out of it, to get away from her so that he could live. He was so desperate to get away from her for once, no matter how much Carmine thought she was simply keeping him safe, and it tears her apart to realize this.
Her chest aches and it takes biting down on her pillowcase to stop the visceral cry that wants to tear out of her. She wishes it was as easy as being able to always hold him closer, to know he's safe, to never have to bandage up a scraped knee or a bleeding heart ever again. It's just going to happen again, eventually. Oh, why does it have to be like this?
Carmine digs her face into her pillow, a feeble attempt to drown out the sounds of his cries, and hates that she’s not in control anymore. As she mulls over the terrifying truth of this, she thinks of what she even can do in spite of it.
She’s not a pokémon— not an omnipotent time-god, or an all-seeing knower of every potential outcome in life, but she is human. Carmine is Kieran’s big sister, someone who will always know him differently from everybody else, someone who he still comes to for help. She is human, and she knows human feelings (despite what anyone else might say, judging by her facial expressions).
She thinks part of her heartache got spurred on from when she felt Kieran’s hands clutching at her shirt— something he's always done since he was small. Wherever she went, her baby brother almost always tailed behind, his nervous little hands clinging to her back or her arm like moss stuck to a tree. That little tug on her clothes always said the same thing; I’m here, I need you. Please, help me. I need you right now.
She felt it again today.
She opens her eyes and sighs, feeling some relief in realizing that, and a warm tear spills down her cheek. When she can’t stop him from getting hurt, she’ll be there for him after. Tonight, Kieran came to her, hurting and alone, and she took him into her arms and loved him gently. He smiled at her for that. Maybe that’s all it takes. It fills her with some hope to think that he still searched for her, even after all that time, when she started to believe that he never would again. She feels stupid again, and happy as well— whether Kieran likes it or not, Carmine will always be there for him (Though, she thinks she knows his true feelings about that by now).
As she promises all of this to herself, she’s brought back by the sound of another airy sob. She turns herself over slightly again, to make sure he can hear her.
“It’ll be okay,” Carmine whispers. She listens again and knows Kieran’s heard her, the way his cries immediately begin to slow.
“It’ll be okay,” she repeats. She says more in just those few words, hoping he hears that, too; I’m here for you. We’re in this together. I love you.
She waits, as she always does, for his cries to taper off into stuttery breaths, then into almost nothing at all. Even when she’s sure he’s asleep now, she counts each steady exhale from him at least ten times, feeling the tension leaving her as well.
That… worked.
Carmine rolls over again, holding her blanket tight, and goes over what to do the next morning. Maybe tomorrow they’ll both wash up and brush their hair first thing (she knows she’s going to brush Kieran’s hair one way or another. Well, she’ll offer to, anyway), then maybe take a walk around the cove area in the Terrarium. Or, maybe they shouldn’t think about school at all. She thinks to bring up the idea of him going on sick leave for a while— she can’t imagine he has anything due now…
Her thoughts prattle on and on until she’s thought herself unconscious, as she always did each night. Carmine was a girl who had a method for everything, but maybe not as much anymore. She sleeps with the idea that she can let her brother take the wheel a bit more now, and knows she’ll be there to keep him steady. The two siblings fall asleep in each other's company, knowing they still have much to sort out in the morning together. But just for tonight, they may as well be having another sleepover, like they did when they were little.