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You wake up.
Something is wrong.
“Rei?! Rei, did it work?!”
Slowly, your vision comes into focus. There’s a man kneeling above you, blond hair plastered to his forehead by a layer of sweat. There’s a blurry shadow lingering behind him that seems to defy your efforts to look at it. As you squint your eyes, it fades away. You have a vague feeling the shadow was important, though.
“Rei!” The man is shouting at you. You track your eyes down his arms until they stop in their sockets. You think he’s holding you, but you can’t feel anything.
“Aaaauuuhh?”
Well, that didn’t work. Still, your half-baked verbalization prompts a relieved smile from the man in front of you. He collapses onto your chest, emitting a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Oh god, god, Arceus, it worked,” he half-sobs, “it really worked…!”
So this guy’s responsible for whatever’s happened to you. He looks familiar to you, some deeper instinct responding to his face, but you can’t remember who he is. You can’t remember much of anything, actually.
You focus on your mouth. You need to talk. You need to ask questions.
“Whhooooo aaahhhuuuu?”
That was supposed to be who are you? You think you’re frowning, but you can’t really tell.
The man retrieves himself from your chest, now looking concerned. “… You’re not well,” he says gravely, scanning his gaze up and down your body. “Did I not make it in time…? Perhaps I made some manner of mistake in the process…”
You turn your focus inward. Your connections to your bodily systems seem to be severed; you can’t feel your skin or your limbs or your organs, just a central sort of energy, a languid pulse in the core of your being.
Is that… your soul?
You reach an arm out to the man. He’s taken to muttering while you were self-examining, but perks up at your touch. “Yes?” He asks you eagerly, a fragile desperation lingering in the depths of his one visible eye. You’re clearly someone important to him; you’re going to break his fucking heart once you start getting words in order.
“Whhho… aaarrryoou?”
Better than last time. The smile falls from the man’s face in an instant, and he lunges in close, eyes wetting. “Wh-what do you mean?” He pleads, voice quivering. “No, no, Rei, it’s me! It’s Volo, Rei, you can’t have forgotten—”
“Vvvffo… llllo.”
He laughs weakly and turns away. “I’ve broken him,” he laments to himself. “I’ve made a horrible mistake.”
That doesn’t sit right with you. You’re… some measure of alive, because of Volo. (Reasonably, you have to assume that what you just ‘woke up’ from was death.) He shouldn’t be admonishing himself for it.
“Vooollllll. Vol-loohh.”
There’s a tear lingering on his cheek as he faces you. You really, really cannot afford to fuck this one up.
“Thaaankkkkyoouuu.”
His expression softens. “Oh, Rei…” He collapses onto you again, and when your head jostles slightly in the process you surmise that he’s hugging you. Clumsily, you maneuver your sluggish arms onto his back.
Eventually, he pulls away, and faces you with a resolved huff. “I suppose we should take stock of our situation, yes?”
You nod. Hopefully he sticks to yes-or-nos for a while. With a warm smile, Volo offers you his hand to pull you up, effortless as the act of standing was to him. You don’t take it, using this opportunity to try and get used to your floaty, faraway body on its own terms.
Speaking of your body, you’re a mess. The navy fabric of your… uniform, a distant memory echoes, is stained black with blood in swathes. It’s probably more black than blue at this point, but the part of you that knows it’s the uniform of an organization helpfully also remembers what color it’s supposed to be. Your hands, the only skin the uniform leaves exposed without the need for a tear, are scratched and coated dark with dried blood. On the subject of tears, too, you’re sporting a good collection. Nothing’s falling off exactly, but some of the wounds the tears expose look deep and serious. It’s no wonder you woke up dead.
Unsurprisingly, you’re unsteady on your feet. Volo levels a concerned look at you as he gently stabilizes you by the shoulder. “You do understand the things I’m saying?”
You nod, and, feeling adventurous enough to append your answer with another attempt at speech, slur out, “Taaaalkk haaaarrrddd.”
You hope it’s not going to be like this forever. Some inkling from the remaining cache of your living brain finds this whole deal crushingly corny.
“Hm,” Volo ponders your answer for a moment, scanning the area. “We should depart—can you walk?”
What a question! You have no idea. Cautiously, you put one leg forward (sending Volo scrambling to support your back) and it seems to work well enough. Trying to shift your weight, however, leads to you careening off to the side, Volo grabbing you in an improvised bear-hug to keep you upright. “Careful, darling!” He chides you playfully, with a dazzling smile.
… Darling?
“Here,” he says gently, “hold onto me.” You’re not sure you’ve relearned how to “hold” yet, but Volo maneuvers your arms for you, so they’re wrapped around his waist. All you have to do is close your hands.
Volo yelps. He flinches and jumps, shaking you as your grip remains firm. “Not so hard, please!” He capitulates laughingly as he pulls at your arms.
“Soorrrruy.” You unclench your fists and try to grab shallower, lighter.
“That’s a good boy,” he murmurs, his tone warm and fond. You think he might be patting your head.
… Hm.
“Now,” Volo adjusts his backpack with a resolute huff, “I’m going to start moving. I’ll pick you up if you fall, so all you need worry about is holding on.”
“Mmhmmm,” you hum, using this readying time to take stock of the area you’ve woken up in. It’s a rocky path bordered with struggling vegetation, and when you scan your surroundings they’re surprisingly free of…
… Of…?
What are you forgetting? You stumble immediately as Volo starts to walk, distracted by this empty space that feels so urgent. He lifts you up with a patient smile, and you set aside a little more brainpower from agonizing to be used on this “walking” thing.
You round a cliff, and further on the path ahead of you is some kind of—a creature—a “Gible”—a—
“A Pokemon!” You shout, startling Volo with the noise and yourself with the clarity of it.
“Yes?” Volo responds, bewildered. “You see them every-… Did you forget about Pokemon?”
Maybe the trick is to not think about it. “I dddidd!”
Volo chuckles lightly, breaking into a sigh as he exhales. His arms pull you closer with a trembling grip. “It wasn’t only me…”
Ah. You’ve been leaving Volo with a painful misunderstanding. You try, carefully, to put just a little pressure into the hanging-on position Volo’s placed you in. He deserves a hug.
“Oh, Rei…” Softly, gently. “… We really should get going.” You nod, the ghost of an instinct telling you that something is stirring behind you and will become hostile soon.
“Where to go…” Volo muses as you walk. “We should certainly get you cleaned up before we return you to your Galaxy Team.”
“Galaaa…?” Oh, wrong choice. “Teaamm?” You feel, again, an urgency to this void in your memory. It’s not as all-encompassing as the concept of Pokemon, but whatever a “Galaxy Team” is, it must be a cornerstone of your life somehow.
“They house and feed you,” Volo explains, “in return for your work as a surveyor. You… were always quite proud to tell me of it.”
“Surrrvvvey…” It feels right, electric somehow even on your sluggish tongue.
Now, though, the two of you have run up against a new problem: a jagged cliff with a severe incline, where the path you were walking continues visibly below.
Volo hums thoughtfully. “Could you let go?” You’re starting to feel, slowly, like your arms and legs are part of your body instead of unwieldy stilts to be flopped about, so when you answer Volo’s request it feels like it works a little better than when you first grabbed him.
He rummages in his pockets for a bit, eventually pulling out a—a Poke Ball, the linking thread between “Pokemon” and “survey”. He sends out the Pokemon inside—Garchomp, the spectral encyclopedia in the back of your head reads off.
“How are you feeling?” Volo asks, letting the question sit with an anxious look before he shakes his head and asks it again, different. “Do you think you could ride this with me?”
The Garchomp is massive (but I’ve seen bigger, that insistent echo harps) but you feel tenuously certain of your ability to hold things after walking here with Volo, so you nod.
You climb on, Volo behind you guiding your arms again into a suitable position.
“We’ll keep a low altitude,” he says gently, reassuring, “so you won’t be in danger should you fall.”
“A-aaalllt?” You’re going to fly? On this thing?!
You don’t get a response; Volo gives some sort of signal and Garchomp kicks off the edge of the cliff, soaring down the jagged mountainside. Were you ever scared of heights? Are you still now? It’s an intimidating view, so you shut your eyes and wait for the ride to end.
Eventually, Volo’s voice releases you, as he lightly says, “Alright, we’ve arrived.” You spring eagerly from Garchomp’s back onto hard dirt, solid ground, losing your balance and ending up in an awkward sprawl. Volo snorts—quietly, like he’s trying to hold it back, but he’s still laughing at you.
“Mmeann,” you spit as bitterly as you can muster while you again challenge the gauntlet of standing up. Volo laughs at that, a proper full one. “Sorry, sorry!” He capitulates. “Maybe there’s more of you left in there than I’d thought.”
You can’t decide if that’s a compliment or an insult. Maybe you’ll leave that judgement to your living self.
Volo guides you along a dirt path into a hidden alcove, a small living space furnished for a single person. “Mistress Cogita?” He calls.
Out of the hut in the alcove comes a statuesque, austere woman, silver-haired and dressed in elegant black. Her visible eye settles on Volo, then you, then back to Volo.
“What’s this?” She asks curtly. “What’ve you brought me now?”
Volo tenses. “This is the traveler through spacetime I have been telling you about—”
“It is?” She scoffs. “And what a ghastly sight he is! What’ve you done to the poor thing, you lout?”
“Nothing!” Volo snaps back. “I mean—I saved him! I’m the reason he’s alive!”
“Oh, alive, is he?” This Cogita woman seems to be a master of riling Volo—he’s clenching his jaw so hard you think you can hear his teeth grinding.
Patiently, you raise your hand.
Cogita looks to you, apathetic. “Yes?”
You point to Volo. “I’m gladdd.”
Her attention jumps right back to Volo, accusing. “The poor wretch can’t even speak right!”
“Hey!” The two of you protest in chorus.
Cogita sighs, seeming to soften slightly. “I meant no ill to you, lost soul,” she says wearily, “but this man has come crowing to me about nonsense many a time to waste my patience.”
“We don’t need your patience!” Volo interjects. “We need only someplace safe to get Rei cleaned up.”
She sighs again, shaking her head. “Do as you wish,” she relents morosely. “I’m sure you don’t find yourself above barging into women’s private quarters either way.”
Volo drags you into Cogita’s hut promptly, his motions rough with frustration. He seats you on Cogita’s bed and starts undoing the strap around your waist.
“Vollohh?”
“Ah, apologies,” he says sheepishly, seeming to find himself from his anger at the interruption. “I need to see into your Satchel, Rei. It’ll only be a moment—but I’m certain you’ve a spare uniform in here.”
He rifles through the satchel, newly detached from your waist, another frustrated frown taking root on his brow. “Rei, did you not organize… any of this?”
“I ‘unnoohh.” Is it really your fault anymore if your living self was untidy?
Volo keeps digging, muttering to himself to fill the silence. You peek over the clasp to watch him as he goes, straining to remember what these items are and do. That’s a Tumblestone, your instincts provide, and you need them to make Poke Balls. You gathered them from larger rock formations, a kind that have a specific look, sending your Pokemon out to…
… Your Pokemon? Many Poke Balls rattle around in the satchel as Volo searches, but a few are set off to the side, resting comfortably in six pockets on the inner lining. You reach your hand in to grab one, startling Volo. It feels important, though, important enough that you don’t even stop to apologize before sending out the Pokemon inside the worn, roughly-made Poke Ball.
It roars imposingly, taking up much of the small space of Cogita’s hut—a Samurott. Your partner. An important, beloved Pokemon. You reach your hand out to pat it, but before you make contact, the Pokemon looks you over and lowers its head in a certain way—an aggressive behavior, a threat display. It turns toward Volo and snorts angrily.
“Nnoo, no!” You fawn, flustered. “He’ssz helpinngg!”
Samurott turns back to you, giving a softer huff and bowing its head—you think this is its impression of a nod.
“Would you please put that thing away?” Volo asks with a nervous laugh. “I’m not keen on being attacked, much less in Mistress Cogita’s room!”
“Mhmm.” You return Samurott to its ball, but leave it next to you on the bed. Even if it might not be hard to find it again in your satchel, you feel somehow comforted by your lingering connection to this Pokemon.
“Ah-ha!” Volo shouts, pulling a neatly folded square of navy fabric out of the bag. “Here we are! Now you may get… get changed…” The sweetness of Volo’s victory over your cluttered satchel wears off fast as he clearly begins to think about the logistics of getting a half-numb zombie like you in or out of a set of clothing.
“Can youu hellpp me?” You ask him earnestly.
Volo’s cheeks redden slightly. “Of course!” He declares. “Leave it all up to me!”
He seems to get over whatever embarrassment he’d been feeling at the notion of seeing your naked body easily enough, guiding you out of your layers with a steady, gentle touch. Your sandals untied, your kimono unwrapped, your undershirt pulled off, all with a sort of quiet reverence.
Some of the blood that’d matted your wounds comes off with the clothes—there are holes in you now, and you don’t think they’ll ever get properly closed. It feels a little… lonely, somehow.
Volo scratches at one of the more persistent crusts of blood. “Please do tell me if I am hurting you, Rei.”
“Mhm.” Hurt? Is that something you even have anymore? You don’t remember feeling “hurt” even once since you woke up.
The blood falls away and reveals another hole, a diagonal tear across the side of your ribcage. Volo’s hand lingers on it, quivering. Up close like this, you can really see that his skin is a different color than yours—a more alive color.
He traces his fingers over your body with a serious expression. “You’re so cold…”
And then he gets a look on his face, an inquisitive sort of rumination that your living instincts tell you is bad news. His fingers trace lower, running down your stomach, sliding along your hip bone. When his eyes meet yours again, there’s an eager passion reflected within. “Could you feel any of that?”
“Nnope,” you answer, starting to feel like you’ve really almost gotten talking down properly, like you’re rounding the very last bend. Volo’s grin widens as he glances back to your crotch. He thumbs the band of your underwear, looking far too excited. “Do you think,” he whispers, “that this still works?”
Your… genitals?
… That’s a good question. (They probably don’t, in all likelihood, but Volo’s curiosity is infectious—you want to see him get his answers.)
“Dunnno,” you say. Volo’s thumb starts to dip, slowly, pulling—
A sharp knock raps at the door. “Are you quite finished in there?” Cogita asks from outside.
Volo jolts, his ravenous energy dissipated by the reminder of where and why. “Just a moment!” He calls to her over his shoulder. “N-now,” back to you, with a chagrined look, “let’s get you into that fresh uniform!”
Putting on the uniform is little different from taking it off, especially with Volo’s gentle, even guidance. You tie your Satchel back on—something in you is soothed, now, being in a clean uniform with all your items in order.
“Thank you for thhe space,” you say to Cogita as you leave her room, bowing your head politely.
“Oh, one of you knows your manners,” she sighs.
“Yes, yes,” Volo snaps behind you, “nothing’s too good for you, Mistress! We’ll be on our way now!” He brushes past her, grabbing you by the shoulder and beelining to the path out.
You walk in silence for a bit, waiting for the flame of Volo’s frustration to burn itself out. “… So,” you ask, “where are we goinng?” He hasn’t brought his Garchomp back out, so you’re not flying—and probably not going back to the place where you died.
He pauses, for a moment, blankly processing before smiling down at you, “We’re going home.”
“Home?” You want to appreciate the gesture of the phrase, the comfort he’s clearly trying to instill in you. But you don’t remember where “home” is.
“Jubilife Village,” Volo clarifies, setting his gaze back to the road ahead, “home and headquarters of the Galaxy Team. You’ve lodgings and companions alike there.”
Oh. Oh, no. That’s not good. You grab onto Volo’s apron, huddling close in your nervousness. “I donn’t remember them, though…”
“Nothing that can’t be smoothed over,” he reassures you, “with tell of a bump on the head or something similar. Living people can lose their memories just as you have.”
Somehow, you don’t feel like it’ll be that easy. You cling to Volo’s side as he leads you “home.”
You know the gate before you see it, the remains of lived-through life in your head recognizing the terrain while the structures of Jubilife are but a blurry shape in the distance. As the gate comes into view, there’s actually someone just departing from it—a girl in your same uniform, blue for survey (red for security, other colors for… something else).
She spots you—freezes, double takes.
“Rei?!” You can just barely catch your name on her distant shout. Then she’s running, sprinting, desperate to reach you. You don’t feel ready for this.
“Her name is Akari,” Volo whispers to you as she approaches, “she’s your friend.”
“Is that really—where did you—we couldn’t—” she sputters incoherently as she reaches comfortable earshot, seeming to have too much to say to you at once. “Where were you?!”
“I, ahh,” you don’t have time to think of a response before Akari tackle-hugs you, knocking you off balance. Volo laughs warmly as you struggle to keep upright.
“S-seriously,” she blubbers into your scarf, “what happened? Security Corps couldn’t find—they said you were—ugh, you jerk!” She smacks you lightly on the shoulder.
“I’m, uh, sorry,” you fumble.
Mercifully, Volo steps into the conversation with an excuse for you. “It seems he took a bit of a fall!” He says jovially. “I found him all out of sorts at the bottom of one of our Highlands’ ravines—robbed of his memories, at that! I thought to escort him home myself, but we must have just missed your Security Corps along the way!”
Akari pulls away, releases you, and aims a teary scowl at Volo. “So this is your fault!” She shouts, shoving him hard enough to send him stumbling.
Back to you. “Wait, your memories…? You don’t know who I am?”
“Sorry.” You shake your head, looking as earnestly remorseful as you can—which is probably a lot, considering you’re barely even lying to her with this tale.
She’s back in your space instantly, examining and scrutinizing. “You hit your head? Do you feel funny? You look really pale, too—”
Volo muscles into the conversation again. “Surely nothing a good night’s rest wouldn’t do to mend?”
Akari huffs at him, “No, you’re not supposed to sleep when you hit your head! How long ago did you find him, anyway? This is really—he needs to see Medical Corps!”
You flinch away, full of dread at the notion of a medical professional taking a look at your half-dead abomination of a body. “I-I think I’m fine, actually,” you protest weakly. Akari doesn’t buy it, grabbing for your hand.
On contact, she yelps, “You’re super cold! Are you sure you didn’t get lost in the Icelands?” You reach for Volo as she drags you away to the village, pulling him along in your suffering.
You go before Cyllene first, central as her office is to the Galaxy Team headquarters. Volo recycles your hit-on-the-head story, and, as a final flourish, “… As I’m the one who found him in such a state, it seems he’s become more reliant on me in his amnesia. Might I be allowed a stay to help take care of him?”
Cyllene nods sternly. “It is not my duty to regulate who our corps members allow in and out of their personal quarters. That said, we are unable to compensate you for any work you do in this capacity—I trust you expected as much?”
“Oh, of course!” Volo says jubilantly. “I do this out of the goodness of my heart, not for pay.”
Akari shoots him a nasty side-eye, and you can’t fault her for it. He’s laying it on a little too thick. Cyllene’s impassive demeanor isn’t broken by suspicion, though, and she focuses her attention back to her paperwork, an implicit dismissal of the three of you.
Akari grabs you by the wrist and pulls you to the right, where your doctorial reckoning probably awaits. You fight her, pulling sullenly away.
“Rei,” she says, her tone serious but wavering with worry, “come on. You need to see Pesselle.”
“I,” shit, you need an excuse, a good reason, a convenient lie, “… don’t want to.” Fuck.
“Why not?!” Exasperated. Cyllene eyes your unfolding drama disapprovingly over the top of her papers.
“If I may,” Volo interjects from above, “perhaps Rei merely wishes to readjust to his surroundings before going in for medical examination?”
“Y-yeah!” You grab the story and hold tight. “I mean, if I lived here, people around here must know me, right? I m-might get some memory back if I ask around…!”
Akari makes a face like she’s trying to swallow a sour berry. “… I guess…”
Volo extends his arms and gently ushers the two of you out of Cyllene’s office—an attempt to curry more favor with her, you think.
“Now,” he says in a low voice, careful, “I’d like to take Rei back to his quarters, to see if the familiar setting does anything—and you have work to return to, do you not, Akari?”
Akari groans. “Yeah, yeah,” she gripes, “you’re trying to get rid of me, I get it.” She shakes free of Volo and looks you in the eyes with deep-set, earnest concern. “I don’t know why you don’t want to see Pesselle about your head, but… be careful, okay? We already thought we lost you once today.”
Something in you feels a little… ajar, at this show of straightforward care that you have no context for. “I will,” you tell her with a firm nod. That seems to appease her, and Akari walks off and out the door with a light, unconcerned step.
“Well,” Volo says cheerily as his hand finds yours, “shall we?”
As you walk outside, one of the merchants stationed outside Headquarters (you’d had a little moment on the way in, realizing that Volo’s outfit is a uniform just as much as yours) whistles and shouts at you. “Woo-hoo!” She cavorts noisily. “You get ‘em, lover-boy!”
“Oh, hush!” Volo shouts back at her. The older man seated next to her jabs with his elbow, but she deftly dodges. “Woo-oo-oo-ooh!” She hoots.
“Enough,” the seated man grunts, stretching the whole of his arm out to shove her. Volo, a few shades redder than he was a moment ago, admonishes her, “Yes, that’s quite enough, Tuli!”
Remorseless, Tuli grins. Volo ushers you along to the line of rooms bordering headquarters with a hurried restlessness. Once the door is shut—a little more firmly than normal, clattering as it closes—Volo faces you with a look of chagrin, saying softly, “My apologies. I don’t visit the village often, so I picked up which room was yours from Tuli there, and it… sparked her interest.”
Some things feel like they’re falling into place, facts and implications connecting in a way that makes you feel really stupid for not thinking of this before now. “Volo,” you ask him carefully, afraid the idea will shatter at a breath if you mishandle it, “when I was alive, were we… together?”
The look Volo gives you is profound, full of warmth and affection but also deep, heavy grief. “We were,” he affirms quietly. “I would move heaven and Earth not to lose you, Rei, so when I saw you felled in the Highlands, I… moved that which I could.” His hand rises to your face, strokes gentle down your cheek. “You haven’t… remembered, have you? You’ve merely understood.”
“Sorry,” you dumbly say, shaking your head. “I wish I could.”
Volo sighs, wrapping his arms around you and pressing you to his chest. “I shan’t give up hope,” he murmurs, “but it is enough that you are here with me, Rei.” In close like this, pressed against Volo’s body with your dulled-to-useless sense of smell inhaling his scent, you almost feel like you can grasp something. A gap in your emotions, something shaped like longing or belonging. You bring your arms up to hug him back.
“Now!” He pulls back, hands on your shoulders, meeting your eye with a look of determined optimism, “Come sit! It’s past time you ate something.”
Ate…?
You seat yourself by the hearth, turning the word over in your mind. To eat. To… eat…?
“Now, I’m not the most refined cook,” Volo chatters, sitting down next to you, “but I find myself quite capable in the kitchen when it comes to most things. What would you like to eat?”
You, your brain fills in before you can open your mouth. You can’t say that. You can’t seriously be thinking that. You try to envision foods, to think of something normal, anything better than that. You. You. It’s something deep and primal spurring these thoughts, an ache in your body where blood used to be. Consume. Eat. Eat him.
“I dunno,” you lie before the silence stretches too long. “How about you?” The hidden double entendre weighs heavy on you as Volo thinks it over.
“Well?” Volo asks you, the warning signs of building impatience in his tone. You can’t remember what he just said. You stare at him blankly and try to will the thoughts of biting and tearing out of your mind. It doesn’t work.
“Sorry, um, what were you—” You half-start a sentence before Volo interrupts, a stern concern writ on his face. “Rei, are you alright?” Fuck.
“I… I want to,” unsteady, wavering, trepidatious, “to eat you.” Your hands grasp feebly at his apron.
“Hm?” Instead of being repulsed or confused, Volo puts on a pensive expression. “I suppose the folklore does say that…”
“S-sorry?” Meat. Blood. Eat. Bite.
“… It should be fine in moderation,” Volo concludes with a nod, hands drifting to the collar of his jacket.
“Huh?”
Volo retreats to your futon and shucks off his jacket, unfolds his kimono, baring skin. “Come, Rei,” he says, gesturing to his naked shoulder. “… Creations like you are said to partake of human flesh. It may be necessary to your continued existence.”
“Y-you’re,” in lieu of a heartbeat, your soul feels like it’s thrumming with energy, monotone hum eclipsing your thoughts, “letting me…?”
Volo smiles, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Better me than some poor villager, no? We don’t want you losing yourself from lack.”
You shuffle over to him, collapsing over his shoulder. “I…” Your teeth hover inches over his skin. “I can really…?”
With a good-natured chuckle, Volo simply pushes your head down, forcing your fixation into reality. Your teeth puncture and rend on pure instinct, sinking deep as Volo hisses quietly. Your numb undead tongue doesn’t register taste any longer, but Volo’s blood feels like liquid fire in your mouth, the heat spreading through your core as you gulp it down desperately.
“Volo,” you mumble into his skin, too delirious to care how mangled it gets from the awkward position of your stuck-open mouth. It’s euphoric, ecstatic, like this is what you’re meant to be and do. Your teeth hit their limits and, dimly, you register that you should probably take a shallower bite than that if you want anything to chew on.
Volo’s been keeping quiet, expressions of pain reduced to a strained hiss when he breathes, but as you come up from that first bite he opens his mouth. “Rei,” he says chipperly, “are—ooowww!”
Your teeth meet each other under his skin. You pull, you tear, you rend. With enough dedication, the flesh comes free.
But you want more.
That first bitten-off piece stays in your mouth like a charm, warmed continually by new blood as you bite, and bite, and eat, and eat, and—there’s something attacking you externally, a force against your body, but you can’t find it in yourself to be bothered because it’s so small in comparison to the relief of eating, biting and eating and biting and eating and—
You wake up.
There’s a tremendous pressure bearing down on you.
Volo, freshly gored and bloodied shoulder not even wrapped or put away yet, looks down at you sternly. It’s stained his kimono, not just the drippings from the wound directly but in spatters, uneven patches from when you…
… Oh.
“Sorry, Volo.”
He’s taken off guard by your straightforward repentance, recoiling slightly. “Well,” he huffs, “we’ll have no more of that.”
“Maybe, you could, um,” you fumble for words, “c-cut off a piece for me? Next time?”
Sternly, “No more.” He waves his hand, and the pressure that’d been containing you releases—one of his Pokemon, no doubt. You use your newfound freedom of movement to turn and see it, and it’s Volo’s Garchomp, giving you a severe and wary look.
“Sorry,” you whisper to it. “Won’t happen again.”
“I should say it won’t!” Volo interjects, returning Garchomp to its ball seemingly just to scold you more forcefully. “Why didn’t you listen? I told you to stop several times!”
“I, um…” How can you put it? “I blacked out, kind of.”
You bring your gaze up from a remorseful rest on the floorboards to meet Volo’s eye and, oh, there it is—through the indignity and pain, that spark of curiosity lighting up his face.
“You lost consciousness?” Pressing into your space eagerly. “… Were you taken over by your baser instincts, perhaps? You certainly didn’t faint!”
Being in close with Volo’s still-bleeding shoulder is making you woozy. Your mouth feels dry, in need of warmth, craving that fire as it drips down Volo’s skin inches away. “I,” you say unevenly, “I-I’m still hungry.” You point weakly at the wound, the fight to keep your reason feeling like you’re holding back a pack of starving dogs.
“Oh!” Volo gingerly steps back, a ponderous look on his face. “My, that appetite of yours… Is merely standing back enough?" He perks up, excitement rising to the surface again. “How are you feeling, exactly? Describe it to me!”
Instead of doing that, you scramble for your satchel, tight-lipped. Once unstrapped, you hold it out to Volo, the motion rough with desperation. “Th-there’s something,” you fumble, “in there. Th-that will help you.” You can’t remember the words, but you know your living self prepared for something like this.
“Oh, first aid?” Those words sound right. You nod.
Volo snickers, even as he takes the satchel from you with a careful, uneven grip to spare his injury. “You must be truly ravenous to be so stymied,” he teases. “Good to see you’re still more man than monster, I suppose.” He leans in and plants a kiss on your forehead, and even though you’ve hardly smelled anything since you woke up you could swear the smell of his blood reaches you in the motion.
It's fine, though. Volo pulls away, and he rummages in your satchel for a moment, and he puts that tantalizing bloody gouge away behind layers of gauze and bandage. “Come, come sit!” He beckons you, once he’s covered the last traces of red with plain, clean white, to your futon. “We’ve much to discuss!” That fragment of yourself that still remembers him feels a sort of fond resignation, at this. You’re not escaping the spotlight of his interest that easily; of course you aren’t. That’s just Volo.
You sit, looking to Volo obediently for the start of his monologue. “Now,” he excitedly says, waving his finger in a manner that calms and endears you instinctively, “a creation such as yourself is intended to be imbued with a duty of absolute obedience! Indeed, the ritual I referenced to revive you has one such characteristic—it necessitates the employment of a talisman, however, one which I had neither time nor clarity of mind to create while you lay felled. Even so, having revived you myself should incur some degree of dominion over your actions—and yet you lost yourself to attack me! Do you have any idea why that may be?”
You chew on the question for a bit. “Well, I might’ve just been really hungry,” you ponder, “but… I wonder if it’s because you’re important to me. Not that you made me, but that you’re someone I know? Or, that I knew.”
“Really!” You think he’s blushing a little. “Might you explain your reasoning?”
“I think, um,” alright, now you’re getting flustered, “I had kind of a feeling that… I wanted to get as much of you as possible into my mouth. Because you’re you.”
“M-my.” Definitely blushing now, Volo looks away, fingers ghosting over the bandage on his shoulder. “… Rei,” he takes a deep breath and fixes you with a determined look, “will you be mine?”
You can tell he thinks he’s asking something big of you, but… “Aren’t I already?”
Volo slouches, faltering. When he meets your gaze again, he looks more nervous than convicted. “I understand that, as you are now, you are a man changed, and you may never return to what you were before. But you are still the man I fell in love with, memories or not—I am asking if you will have me even still.”
“I mean, yeah?”
Volo crumples again, this time emitting a noise of frustrated discontent. “Please take this seriously! You should at least pause to consider!”
“Why should I do that?” You really don’t get what the problem is. “Maybe it’s that, uh, dominion you were talking about having, but I like you a lot. I want you to be happy, and it sounds like you’d be happy being with me, so why not?”
“I am asking what would make you happy!” He huffs. Volo sighs, a rough groaning thing, and grabs you, drilling you with a stern stare. “If I must act as your master to get my answer, then here is my order: tell me what you want to do.”
“I want to be with you,” the reply falls out of your mouth before you’re even fully aware you’ve said it. (Maybe there’s something to that whole master-dominion thing after all?) Volo’s expression sours; he can’t tell how genuine of a statement to take that as, you think.
“I mean that,” you tell him softly, with your best earnest smile. “And even if you can’t trust my opinion, the person I used to be would want to be with you.”
Volo startles, settling into a look of gentle affection. “He would, wouldn’t he?” He murmurs. “Thank you, Rei. I’m satisfied with your answer now.” He leans forward, gently, and plants a sweet kiss on your lips.
… Then flinches back, laughing. “It’s like kissing stone!”
You lunge at him, knocking him over flat on your futon, and plant a kiss of your own. “This stone kisses back!” You proclaim.
“We’ll simply have to find a way to warm you up,” Volo purrs, hand creeping for the hem of your kimono.
You swat him away playfully, admonishing, “You’d think you could give a guy some time to adjust!”
Volo wraps his arms around you—at chest height, this time—with a contented chuckle and a light sigh. “I shall stay my hand for tonight,” he hums, “but we will be investigating precisely how this body of yours functions before long, Rei.”
“I can live with that,” you sigh happily.