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slashingdisneypasta · 4 months

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That things to incorporate in smut post got me thinking. In a roundabout way that’s prob only indirectly smutty. Ok, say Jim had managed to acquire a younger girlfriend (which he totally thinks gives bragging rights because let’s be real, he’d be forever going on about it), pre-chow time. Post…well, look at how obviously different he moves. Not just the limp, but the caution. He’s more AWARE now that he’s an old guy *coughwithmoobsbutilovethatforhimcough* Very mortal. Very missing half his parts. GF still has more than half her life left, barring any unfortunate circumstances.

I think he’d be an absolutely tragic nightmare combo of clingy/flirty/tell him still think he’s hot/you can be the sexy nurse, but then when the phantom pains get bad enough to make him really THINK about it, he’s all cranky from wounded ego. No, he DOESN’T want a massage (because that’s a thing you can do for phantom limbs, apparently). He’s not taking his pants off for THAT, thanks. Maybe tries to spin it into something dirty, like “but if you’re asking for more fun reasons…” Before he just gives up and goes back to sulking. Says just hand him the booze and go away, he’s got things to drink about for awhile.

OMG YES- AND PROSTHETICS TOO! If I make smut for Jim, or Long John Silver, or Captain Hook- will absolutely be putting detail in about that. Thank you for the reminder!

And, yes!! He is a lot more cautious and grounded in the second movie! Obviously- because of trauma (I mean- look at my last post.). And I like how you're suggesting that only getting mauled by a croc made him realise he's old. Like, the general aging process did not do it for him (Which honestly makes sense, considering how he watches the coach get attacked in Final Chapter- he's watching like he's invincible. That would n e v e r happen to him right?? Sure, to his father and his mother and his aunt- but not him. Nooo.); he had to lose his limbs to get humbled. (Crazy person.)

Once again- yes! XD I totally agree on how he'd be after that with his S/O 😅 She can play sexy nurse, fine, but as soon as the concern gets real she's got a grumpy old man on her hands. He doesn't need anyone worrying over him, he's a grown ass man and (At least this is my HC) he's been on his own for a l o n g time (I mean he's a sleazy alcoholic low-life illegal poacher- I doubt he's got a whole lotta trustworthy friends.); he can take care of himself. He'd be stubborn as fuck, very very used to doing shit on his own; Gritting and bearing it; D r i n k i n g his problems away. Accepting help? Pff, nah.

I couldn't help it- I had to write a little something for this XD

Jim Bickerman x YoungerGirlfriend!Reader || Oneshot

Plot: A typical night trying to make Jim take care of himself causes a couple revelations for you both. Mostly for you, because he's too damn stubborn to believe you.

Warnings: Very evident age-difference relationship (Its a major theme this time). Insecurities regarding aging and prosthetics. Unedited.

Tagging: @marinerainbow , @masqueradeball and @slxsherwriter

Its a stand-still. You imagine a tumbleweed blowing by in the untidy above-bar apartment; between the ratty old couch and the beer-damp coffee table, and across old jack bottles and a loose-strand mat thats seen far better days. But your focus is stead-fast on Jim across the room by the window. You're half concerned he's going to try and climb out of it to get away from you.

Well- not concerned-concerned, not in a way where you're worried he's going to hurt himself (Thats his prerogative), but more because then he'll escape. And you wont be able to get his damn leg off.

"Jim." You start, a very firm frustrated tone moulding itself to the sound of your voice; not taking your eyes off of the old cowboy so he knows you mean business. "The doctors said you need to take it off at night so the wound can b r e a t h e. If you don't, it can suffocate and get worse. You could lose more of your leg."

"Yeah, well, then it'll get worse! I'll lose more, wont I?" He exclaims, giving a shrug and you throw your arms up in frustration at this quick responce. This man!!- "Its my leg and I'll decide when I take it off."

"Just let me help you, you old coot!"

He waives his hand and the new hook around and shrugs. "I'm fine! Don't need aany help, thank you very- hey." The sudden dark tone that enters his voice creep in as soon as you move to approach and makes you halt immediately in your tracks as he sets you with a very stern look. Jim points his hook prosthetic threateningly at you. "You stay right there."

Well, it would have been threatening if you didn't know him so well. He was not going to hurt you, so you take another step. "Or what?" You ask, shrugging.

"Don't be cute." He warns, a growl in his voice and a snarl on his face.

"Whatever do you mean?- Oh, come on, Jim!" Mid-sentence, Jim had turned around and opened the window. "Its dark, its raining, and its slippery. how do you suppose you're gonna climb down??"

"I already left a ladder out there, assuming you were gonna start this shit again t'night." Of course he did. "Just gotta slide to it. Hm... " The way he's peering out the window suggests that he kind of forgot, though, the exact location of the ladder on the other end of the porch cover below the window sill. Would that stop him, though? No-

Ughh. You groan, and drop your face into your hands out of exasperation.

You managed to compromise- he gets to keep his leg on but you convinced him to take off the hook, so long as you handled opening his beers for him. Now you sit side by side under the window (The cool air from the rain is nice after the heat of the stand-off and negotiations). Carefully, you pull the tab on a can of gross beer and pass it across to him. "... so. Same time tomorrow night?" You ask, a worn-out smile on your face.

He chuckles darkly beside you, taking a sip of his drink. "Probably. 'nless you plan on leavin' me alone?"

"No." Nice try on that wishful thinking.

"Then yeah. Same time, same place then."

"... you know you have to give in eventually," You pipe up again, turning your head to look at him, leaning your temple on the wall. When he looks back, you flash him a sleazy smirk (You learnt from the best). "I have better stamina then you do."

That unlocks a real chuckle from him, his shoulders jumping and a smile flickering across his face in a way that makes your smile turn genuine. "Yeah, well, you might be right about that princes but I'm a lot older then you- I know things a lotta you don't, right?" He looks away from you. "And I don't anticipate you stickin' around here forever, so eventually I'll be home-safe." Your heart falls, and the smile slowly disappears from your face listening to him- but he doesn't seem to make any note of it as he flashes you a dirty look of his own. "No matter how good your stamina is."

"... what, on earth, do you mean?"

Jim gives a shrug. "Well sweetheart, just- you're a sweet young little thing. I'm uh- well," Chuckling, his eyes move away from yours again. "I'm a little past my prime, hm? Pretty sure I know how this story plays out. Eh?" There isn't a self deprecating vibe about what he's saying, he just sounds certain. And that baffles you all the more.

You straighten up. "No?? Well, you'd be wrong. Because, I- I- "

"Aw, sweetheart, you don't needta reassure an old man. I'm fine with all this is. Sure, I like ya, but I know what I am, hm? A little bump in the road, right? I'll be fine when you go off an- "

Oh you have never wanted to smack someone so bad. "Jim!" You exclaim in exasperation and a lick anger, cutting through the absolute bullshit. "First of all- " You take the beer out of his hands, set it clearly out of his reach, and then sit down very firmly in front of him; hands on his shoulders. Holding his attention. He looks bemused, and you wish he'd wipe that little grin off his damn face. "Second of all, listen up. I'm serious, here. I'm not going anywhere, not as far as I'm concerned right now. You're a pain in the butt sometimes but I really don't know where this idea that our relationship has an expiration date is coming from. When we met you were in this- what changed??"

"Well," He chuckles, sounding like he thinks whatever he's thinking is just obvious before he looks meaningfully down at himself. "Uh, I'm not exactly g.i. joe fresh outta the box, am I sweetcheeks? Don't even got all my pieces anymore."

Your jaw drops, and for a moment you don't know what on earth to say. You feel like you cant even breathe. Is that what this is about?? Oh- for gods sake. Setting your face in a frustrated frown, you get up- only momentarily- and climb on into Jim's lap; wrapping your arms around his neck and getting comfortable with a sigh.

"Listen," After taking a deep breath, you force your voice to be low and soft, and start again. "You're hot. How can you not know that?? I knew you were crazy but I didn't know you were out of your mind."

A slow, mirthless grin spreads across his haggard face. "... uhuh. Now I think you're just trynna get in my pants, hm?" Oh, he's deflecting. You refrain from the urge to roll your eyes, but come on man. How transparent.

"Maybe I am. Know why?"

"... " he sighs and rolls his remaining eye.

"Cuz you're hot!" You insist blatantly, putting your hands on either side of his face now so the tips of your fingers disappear in his short grey hair. "Please believe me, I'm nuts about you."

"Sure... "

"Everything about you is perfect. I like you; how you are and how you look." You say gently, tilting your head to the side. "... which is why, no matter how difficult you are or what you do to yourself, I'm not going anywhere. You can refuse help all you like, be as stubborn as you can old man, but I'm in this for long haul. So unless you don't want me, anymore, in which case I'll leave and thats fine, I- "

He had let you speak and do whatever you wanted this whole time, only interrupting when you paused, but when you move to get up and off him now Jim uses his one good hand to catch you and keep you where you are, with a finger in one of your belt loops. "Hmmm, now why would I want that?... "

Happily, you settle back down, wrap your arms back around his neck and lean your forehead against his. "... do you believe me?"

...

"... Not really." He says bluntly with a cheeky grin, making you groan in defeat. Stubborn. Old. Goa- "But I believe you believe all that crap right now- so I'll just enjoy the ride, huh? Long as it plays out."

Closing your eyes, you give a drawn-out sigh. "... you'll see."

"Maybe."

#okay i actually love how this one ended out XD #thank you again for the ask!! i hope you like the lil fic 😅#Jim Bickerman x Reader Oneshot #Jim Bickerman x Reader #Jim Bickerman #Oneshot

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randomwriteronline · 3 years

Text

(Melted Hours)

Grimsley pulled his kimono a little to better cover himself, shivering slightly.

“The Alolan sun is rather warm if you step outside of your beach umbrella’s shade, you know,” a voice above his shoulder prodded him.

Not moving an inch nor lifting his dead pale eyelids, the currently unavailable Elite Four member replied without missing a beat: “Some of us don’t want to get our skin all peely and as red as a Chople Berry.”

“That’s what sunscreen is for, you discount Woobat,” his companion huffed, naturally cold hand slipping into the other man’s collar and down his neck without even the hint of a warning. Grimsley jolted up from his deckchair with a hiss, back arching to slip away from the icy fingers and swatting at them, voice then lowering into a groan as his sandals sunk deep enough in the sand for it to scald the soles of his feet.

“Don’t you have a movie to star in?” he asked annoyed.

Brycen shrugged: “Twenty minute break.”

“Oh, goodie! And you see no way to spend it better than to bother a poor old man on vacation?”

“I was planning to treat you to some sweet thing and a coffee as black as your eyebags, but if you’d rather be left alone I can always take my leave...”

“And who said something like that, my friend, my buddy, my pal, my chum, my fella, my brother from another mother, my clown from the same car, my cold boy to crack open, my favorite one night stand, my only solace in this sweltering tropical paradise!” Grimsley exclaimed now in a saccharine tone, draping his barely nourished form across much broader shoulders just like a clingy Purrloin trying to get back in the graces of a many times wronged trainer.

Brycen just let him, because he lacked the psychological strength to stop him, and dragged the both of them away to a local shop.

The television was on, its volume quiet, broadcasting the latest happenings around the globe; the news anchor soon cut away to a reporter warmly bundled up in a dense jacket fit for the glacial atmosphere in the alpine environment that could be seen in the background. The two men watched distractly as a missing person case came to a close when the kid in question emerged from the hole in the snow, shaken and shivering but very alive: the tattered coat several sizes too big hanging on scrawny shoulders was quickly covered by the golden sparkling coat of a thermic blanket.

Grimsley’s ruminating teaspoon came to a screeching halt against the ceramic cup before the sugar had completely melted.

After a moment of disbelief, Brycen slammed a hand to his side hard enough to leave a reddish mark on his own skin. He repeated the motion again, and again, searching for a bump somewhere around him until he slapped his wrist and noted with a hushed curse against the gods that he had left his Xtransceiver back in his trailer.

(Emmet would have never done something so stupid - he was too professional.)

A tell-tale dial up sound had him turn his neck fast enough to nearly break it. He lunged for Grimsley’s hand to rip the device from him just as the signal was picked up and a familiar dark skinned smile appeared on the screen.

“Grimsley, hi!” Iris greeted her subordinate, her image blurrying slightly as she moved around, “How’s Alola, are you having fun?”

“Huh,” the man in question replied with eyes still glued to the television across him, the voice he was hearing clearly not the one he expected, “Heya, boss-”

The Ice gym leader yanked his entire arm towards himself: “Iris!” he called out.

“Oh, Brycen hey! Hold on, I’m gonna get Grandpa-” she blocked him before he could call out; the footage jiggled as she quickly descended the stairs, voice coming stronger and weaker in bouts: “Marshal’s here for tea and tips and stuff, so he left his Xtrans up - wait a sec, Grandpa! It’s Grimsley and Brycen!”

The camera shakily turned to reveal Drayden at a table, the Elite Four’s martial artist waving at them with a small ‘hey there’ beside him.

Taking over from his barely communicative friend, Brycen thrusted himself at the screen: “Have you- the news about that rescue in Sinnoh, have you heard anything about that?”

“The children blocked off in the snow, somewhere around Snowpoint? They were on the paper, yes - have they been brought to safety now?” the mayor questioned furrowing his already imposing brows as he took the device from his granddaughter’s hands.

“I- well, yes, one of them is definitely a kid, but I think your nephew might be a bit too old to be still considered one!”

A tinkling crack directed the stranded Unovans to the side of the flabbergasted old man, where Marshal’s clumsy left hand coud be glimpsed as it struggled to catch a falling black cup (his right appearing shortly, holding within it the near shattered white handle) but was still unable to keep its content unspilled, his voice erupting in a sharp: “SSSANDILE!” like he would do everytime he had to keep himself from swearing in front of his currently shaken half-sister.

“If it’s possible, could you please lift that a little -” professor Juniper swiped her finger across the air in front of her screen towards one of its angles, and the very kind worker obliged: “Thank you - look at the shape of the head over there, where it probably fit into the hips, do you think that could be from an extinct species or maybe some kind of regional variant?”

Lenora hummed thoughtfully, chin in her hand.

“Probably a regional progenitor, maybe even from before mankind got a grasp on fire.” she replied. Her pinky traced the length of the bone several thousands miles away: “I got the opportunity to see some early taming-era and a few modern Meganium specimens up close and personal in my day, and the structure and shape was almost a perfect match to this if memory serves me right. Just, you know, not almost the size of a healthy Carracosta.”

“You can get generous with the date,” Clay assured her, looking over the reports from his mine in Hoenn the three of them were currently in contact with: “Based on the depth we found them at I’d be surprised if humans were even a thing when that goliath-worthy toothpick still had meat on it.”

“You think?”

“We can confirm, Ma’am!” a driller replied in her boss’s stead, “Usually this far down we start getting petrol and such, but I remember we found you some Archeops a while back at about this height, and some fossils in Galar too!”

“Told you,” the Ground gym leader gloated quietly.

The woman huffed, but only playfully elbowed his shoulder as she rolled her eyes with a smirk.

Something moved behind Juniper, but the professor didn’t notice it.

Instead she rubbed her sore neck and squinted her eyes in the computer’s glow: “So what this could mean is that Meganiums as we know them - or at least close enough - have been around for quite a while, then.”

“That’s likely, but I’d suggest examining the fossils before jumping to conclusions too hastily,” Lenora replied.

Her hands went to the apron slung over to her side, fetching a notebook and a pen which she shook to make sure the ink had not dried up from its pockets: “I’ll get a team ready to fly over and inspect the area for tomorrow, maybe?” she continued while jotting down her plans, “It would be better not to dig further in the meantime, just in case there’s more fossils around the site.”

Clay only gave a short sigh: “Your word’s the law,” he nodded; then, turning to his employees on the other side of the world: “You heard her - no drilling until her crew arrives. Take that opportunity to rest up and then follow their directives.”

A plethora of affirmative sentences melted together arose from his workers, who waved at him and wished him a fine evening before interrupting their connection.

With only the three of them still visible on each other’s screens, they all deflated a little, rolling their shoulders and popping backs into a proper position to keep the scoliosis and hunchback at bay.

At this point, the gym leaders had to notice that he jittering behind Juniper had become much more prominent, its nature now clearly something more than just a trick of the laboratory’s bright light. Flashes of blonde and green popped up from behind the brown hairdo nervously, waiting for the right moment to intervene yet never taking a chance.

Lenora decided a bit of help was due: “I think somebody wants to share something with the class, Professor,” she coughed gently, pointing vaguely at the space where the anomaly was happening.

Juniper blinked, checking her own image on the screen; she turned quickly, leaning back in her chair.

“Bianca! Sorry, I didn’t notice you,” she apologized to her assistant, who now thrust in the middle of the conversation finally stopped her constant movement. “Is something the matter?”

The girl stumbled a little over her words, clearly still a little frenzied from whatever she wanted to tell them: “Uhm, uh - ok, so I just, because the connection wasn’t that good?, I just got this now, but it’s - hold on it’s from Cheren, he sent- he sent it a lot of hours ago but I got this just- wait, can I, ok, I’m gonna, I’m gonna put it on -”

After a bit of fumbling at the side of the Professor’s computer an image popped up for all to see: the inside of an otherwise pitch black cave lit up by an artificial flash, ground covered in frost bearing what little remained of a torch, two human figures looking up to the author of the shot.

“Should I, who should I call?” Bianca asked apprehensively.

Clay fetched a pair of glasses before answering. He held them up a little away from his face, studying the photograph intently.

“Ladies, I need your good eyes to tell me that’s who I think it is,” he finally muttered, “Because I’m worried my lenses might be smudged.”

“They better not be or our oculists will be getting a lot richer next time we book a visit!” the paleontholgy at his side replied, hand running to her Xtransceiver in tandem with Juniper’s to get Nimbasa on the line stat.

Astral projection did not quite work as Caitlin would have imagined.

Seeing her own body completely still as she was momentarily not a part of it was not that strange to her - she had already witnessed something similar in her homeland, watching through the eyes of Darach; what confused her, at first, was the fact that she could not move herself in any direction, although her limbs and head were perfectly autonomous and capable of raising, lowering, turning and making a wide array of motions at her command without a hitch. It was only when the frustration of not being able to change her position from the middle of the room made her wish she could get out of the building that she watched the world move towards her until she was still standing immoble, but this time in the streets, that she understood how that functioned.

She rotated the world at her fingertips to spin a little as she lowered it to give herself the impression of shooting up into the air, imitating a type of doll she had owned as a child. Maybe it was a bit silly to be doing this during a scientific experiment, but they had only barely started! Besides, anything she did in this state counted as invaluable data: so even something so childish was actually extremely serious matters, and she could afford to do it if she pleased.

Spinning the space around her felt so fun - the lack of dizziness (as her form was, to her, perfectly still) was a welcome bonus.

A woman’s voice reached her to bring her back on track, and directed her thoughts towards Fire types: her mind ran of course to her old valet, globe adjusting its direction and height until she was right next to him. His Houndoom was stretching out lazily on a small ottoman style fainting couch, costume made for the creature, while Darach made tea for the other guests.

She described the interior, the smells, the way the light hit the windows.

After a short pause, the disembodied voice returned to assure her she had done a great job.

Her next task was now to search for something eye-like in shape: screwing her face to properly understand the request, she shifted the land at first to check on the ruins, thinking the solution to the riddle could have been the Unknowns; halfway through, however, she was reminded of that professor with a delightfully eccentric yet somewhat handsome face Shauntal had introduced to her after a visit in that far off region, and of one of the creatures he had once presented to professor Juniper which had curious organs hidden under its ears - shaped, as the voice had asked for, like an eye.

The appearance before her of an Espurr on finely cut grass, Meowstic parents not far, gained her an enthusiastic compliment by her unseen director.

Awaiting new instructions, Caitlin decided she could allow her mind wander a little between friends and colleagues, making the world dance before her as she tracked them all slowly. She settled whistfully on Cynthia and overlooked her house, wondering momentarily how she must have been doing. The local news had recently taken a hopeful, and as Champion she must have been rather concerned with the situation in her hands.

That brought her thoughts to Emmet.

Yet... Instead of sliding back to Unova, she found that the world below her did not budge an inch.

She furrowed her brows. This was strange.

She tried again. And again. Something peculiar seemed to be happening - was the region coming closer? Or maybe...

An idea striked her like lightning: she adjusted the subject of her concerns slightly, and in a second she was beside a cameraman, filming away as a small group of people made quite the commotion around a small wound in the white side of the mountain to--

Her eyes shot open as she raised herself from the bed without even bending her legs, ripping out the electrodes taped to her body in the motion without a care and scaring her poor Gothitelle half to death.

“Good fucking lord,” she said.

Doctor Fennel recoiled a little and blinked.

“Welcome back,” she stated, confused and a little afraid.

Caitlin turned to face her with eyes threatening to fall out of their sockets: “You’ll never believe who’s live on Sinnoh television right now.”

“So the exposition is going fine, I hope?” Cress’s voice reached his distracted ear, “Lots of visitors and good press?”

“Oh, definitely,” Burgh answered absentmindedly. Where the hell did it...? He lifted a coat he had thrown halfhazardly on the floor: nothing. He gave an annoyed grumble as he kept rummaging through his clothes.

He suddenly remembered he was in the middle of a conversation and continued on: “Uh, they’re, uh, they’re pretty taken with the paintings, mostly? Kids love the Mellis section, since it’s interactible and they can’t get enough of the really goopy ones - less so with the sculptures, I don’t think they... Yeah, I don’t think the locals are fans of experimentation in that regard.”

Cilan took over from his brother, green eyes coming into the camera’s focus: “That’s uncalled for! You’re just avantgarde enough to shake up tradition without completely dismissing it, they can’t ignore the innovation you bring to the table!”

“Who are you, his knight in waiter apron?” Chili’s voice came from off screen.

The Grass type connoisseur turned towards him to shout back: “I’m just passionate about art!”

“Are you passionate about the art or about Burgh, specifically-” Cress nudged his side intently with his elbow as if to dig a hole into it, immediately suffering from an understandable retaliation at the chopping hands of his very red-faced and embarassed brother.

The scuffle was enough to momentarily distract the artist in question from his distraction and get him back into the swing of talking with a loud laugh as he momentarily stopped emptying his bag on the bed to search through its contents like a famished Pidove through an overturned trash can.

Cilan attempted to leave, finding himself however trapped between his cackling siblings before he could make his escape.

Burgh gifted the mortified gym leader an amused smile: “Aw!” he cooed playfully, a hand on his heart, “Thank you, you flatter me!”, feeling only a bit guilty when the poor kid tried to disappear behind his own hands. He decided the humiliation had gone on long enough, and as he quickly assessed that the mess of stuff he had dumped on the covers did not hold the object of his desires, he diverted the conversation back on the topic of the appreciation of art: “But eh, de gustibus, as they say - they’re spoiled with classic sculptures over here, of course they’re not keen on new things.”

“So you’ve been at the historical sites?” his friend managed to get out with a still slightly shaky voice from the embarassment.

He chuckled a little more at that, nodding: “It was hard not to! You know what, actually? I think they downplay just how many ruins they have here, because otherwise tourists would think everything even vaguely modern in the region is just a very-” wait, was that it?

He nearly pounced the black plastic on the shelf before realizing it was just a decorative piece, holding back a groan as he completed his sentence: “-A very elaborate illusion made by ghosts.”

“Is it true that there’s a shortage of Fire types there?” Chili butted in, squinting at him: “Also what are you doing exactly, because your Xtrans hasn’t been still one second since the start of this call and it’s a bit nauseous.”

“I- hold on, I don’t know about the Fire types, I haven’t really - AH-HA!” he shrieked as he finally got a hold of the damned remote (which had been sitting in plain sight on one of the armchair’s handles) and turned on the tv, quickly cycling through channels: “Sorry, I was looking for the remote - ‘cause they found those kids in the mountain, you know?, and they said they were gonna broadcast the rescue live since it might have taken a while, but I was busy so I haven’t been able to check - where is it, come on! AH, HERE!”

He zapped back to the right channel after going three too far: the camera’s light turned the snow a blinding white in the sea of blueish hues painted by the late evening upon the mountainside, several people huddled around an opening in the ground slowly shoving a rope further down the cavity as they shouted encouraging words barely audible against the rising wind.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” the triplets asked, talking one over the other: “Did they get them out? Are they still stuck? How many are there? Are they alright? You think they’ll manage it? Do they look alright?”

Burgh waved a hand at the wrist on which sat the Xtransceiver to shush them just as the chord went tight in the rescuer’s hands and began to be pulled back up by a small team: “They’re getting them out, they’re getting them out!” he hurriedly informed the three of them, “They’re getting them out right now, the first one at least!”

The one closest to the hole made a motion with their hand after a short while of pulling: the least dressed, a girl - Candice, the local Ice gym leader, clearly adept to the freezing temperatures - leaned into the hole with half her body with no hesitation, feet planted firmly into the snow like pickaxes but still sustained for good measure by a pair of hands grabbing onto her ankles before more people actually got a better hold of her. A glimpse of the face keeping the intrepid girl’s legs in his hands made the artist jump.

“Cheren’s there!” he shouted. “Cheren’s there, he’s holding the Ice leader up by the ankles!”

“He’s what? Cheren? He’s there?”

“She shoved herself halfway into the hole, maybe to get the-?, and he had to keep her still by the ankles or she would have WAIT! Wait, wait, she’s pulling the kid up! She’s pulling the kid up, ok, she’s got them!”

Helped up by other rescuers whose voices were droned out by the ones erupting from the Xtransceiver, a face young enough to be at most a teen emerged shivering from the darkness, half wrapped around Candice’s neck and donning... No, that couldn’t - there was no way it wasn’t -

“What the hell...?” Burgh slipped.

But it was only a moment, and the golden shine of the thermic blanket envelopped them completely while the rope, already thrown back down the rock maw, stiffened immediately and shook, requiring more people to hold it back.

“They’re getting the second one out now,” he continued with his commentary. A few shouted something, made gestures: “I think there were only two? So it’s the last one, they’re almost finished!”

The struggle seemed ever so slightly greater this time, as if the weight to pull now had increased significantly. Nobody tried to throw themselves in the cave this time, only thrusting helpful hands into the opening: one of them was grasped by pale fingers, and immediately its companion flew to wrap around a thin arm. Something nearly as white as the snow arose briefly in the air to sink into the ivory canopy - something that was another limb, soon caught and pulled up in tandem with its twin to reveal a face like death, with hair towards grey and sunken clear eyes and a mouth of pearl teeth which clenched around the brim of a dark, worn, torn hat as if their life depended on it.

Burgh felt himself choke.

“Holy shit,” he sputtered out much louder than he though he would, “That’s Ingo!”

His Xtransceiver’s speakers crackled for the high volume as the brothers of Striaton gym shouted back: “WHO?!”

Changing into seven outfits in the span of two hours could have been considered an easy job. The problem was that firstly, they were in some cases so very Arceus-be-damned complicated to put on that she needed from one up to three people to help her; secondly, each of them had to go along with a specific faceful of make up which took three minutes to apply and had to then be scrubbed off her in thirty seconds before they could move on to next set of clothes; and thirdly, she was the one who had to walk in them, and yes, she was more than adept at moving in the shittiest of heels, but that did not stop them from hurting her feet and it took one moment given into frustration too long to turn a runway walk into a “Tyranitar on its way to level a city and the mountain range behind it while it’s at it” kind of strut which was highly unlikely to be perceived as charming in any way.

Biting into the straw as if she hadn’t eaten the whole afternoon (which she had in fact not done, safe for a packet of pretzels that someone could have purchased for fifty cents at a vending machine) Elesa did her best to suck up the water from her glass without puckering her already painted lips, as the expensive shit of a lipstick wasn’t stainless at all and she could not handle somebody else touching her again to adjust it right now.

The rehydration process was briefly interrupted by a young man knocking on her glass door to show her the program without entering: in large letters upon an empty page was written UP IN 10 MIN.

She gave him a thumbs up and let her shoulders slump. She did not abandon herself on the chair only because that would have caused significant creases on the fabric, and smoothing them in two seconds would have done nothing against the keen eyed critics who so very loved to drag her inattentiveness across every paper possible even when she was in the middle of grieving a dear friend.

Her mind hushed for a moment. Not even the humdrum around her reached her.

The vanity mirror reflected her blank face back.

Thoughts like that would do her no good, she decided as she shook her head. Arms stretched to pop a little and shoulders rolled to shake off the tension in her muscles, her hand then went to the muted Xtranceiver on the table to check if she had missed something from the world outside of the binds of fashion.

Considering she had a couple dozen or more lost calls and some hundreds of unread messages screaming in bold letters, she had.

No time to think about that, however, as the screen lit up with a brand new in-coming call from Skyla. Elesa picked it up instantly since she finally could now - a litte worried, in truth: “Hey-”

“INGO CAME OUT OF THE MOUNTAIN!” the aviator replied before actually hearing anything from the other end of communication, camera shaking wildly. Ignoring the Electric gym leader’s stunned silence she continued screaming: “THEY FOUND HIM INSIDE OF A MOUNTAIN! IN SINNOH! THEY TOOK HIM OUT OF IT LIKE RIGHT NOW!”

Beneath her voice something like a distorted cacophony shrieked with her.

Elesa lowered her face to the table, her legs feeling like she was going to topple to the ground: “You’re shitting me,” she hissed, breathless all of a sudden.

“Is Elesa there? Is she there? Did you get her? Is she there with you?” the colorful static at the corner of Skyla’s recording shouted in a variety of voices which sounded eerily like several of her fellow gym leaders. “Did you tell her? Is she ok? Burgh, what’s the update, we need an update! Elesa needs an update! Burgh, what’s happening! Burgh!”

“HOLD ON, god!” Burgh’s voice rose above the others before falling back into the noise.

“What the hell is going on there?” the model asked.

Skyla realized she had no visual, and adjusted the Xtransceiver so the other could see the screen of her computer, where a great amount of small rectangles save for one displaying white noise held the concerned faces of many of their colleagues, most of whom turned to wave frantically at her and yell some more barely comprehensible words.

“Burgh is in Sinnoh and he’s following a livestream of the rescue!” the Flying gym leader explained as her concerned face came into frame as well: “We’ve been trying to call you for ages, where on Earth were you?!”

“I’m working! There’s a runway show going on right now!”

“Ah, sh- sorry, are you on break? Are we interrupting-?”

“EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP THEY’VE ALMOST GOT TO THE AMBULANCE AND CHEREN IS GONNA HAVE ENOUGH SIGNAL FOR A CALL SOON,” the artist rudely interrupted their conversation to be followed by an immediate wave of cheers and expressions of relief which he chastised immediately: “I SAID SHUT UP!! I CAN’T HEAR IF YOU MAKE A RACKET, Marlon get ready to have him in line!”

“Aye!” the surfer replied confidently as he fumbled horribly with a spare device and nearly dropped it to the floor about five times.

The static square flashed a moment before a familiar spectacled face appeared in all her blurry, 5 frames per second glory.

Marshal noticed her first, directing the attention to her: “Shauntal’s back!”

“He----llo!” the writer replied, audio and video glitching horribly on the screen. “Can y----ou guys hearme? Kan--to is ni - ice but the connec----tiion suck-s-”

“We hear you, we hear you!” her fellow Elite Four member answered quickly, “You got Emmet on the line? You told him to call?”

“Ok s----o,” Shauntal took a big breath before proceeding as fast as she could despite the terrible quality: “I call-------ed hisXtransbut he didn---t answer so I called h------ome but ... healso didn’t answer so I call--ed Gear Sta-tion and oneoftheemployees replied that he had------- been the wholedayin the Double SubwayLine lea---------------ving justforlunch so may---------be his battery is dead or he m ...... uted the ringtone areyousureyouhearme?, or he lost it but that seems unli------kely becausehe’s so neat and tidy and al-----l but yes he’s prob ... ably still in Gear Station since it shoul----d be openand they told me he should be ba-ack soon since the train was retu .... rning already!”

Elesa bolted out of the room as soon as she was sure the Ghost type trainer was done, leaving friends and co-workers to shriek on the floor as she desperately tried to ignore the sense of dread in the pit of her empty stomach. Her manicured hand landed on the first stagehand at her disposal, and she made a note to apologize later for the scare.

“Ignore everything else,” she ordered the girl without offering any explanation, “Whatever you need to do you don’t have to do that anymore, we’ll have somebody else handle it, what you have to do is go to Gear Station and get Subway Master Emmet out of there and in the backstage as soon as possible I don’t care how, tell him I sent you, tell him he’s wanted by the government, knock him out and drag him in hidden in a trashcan if you have to, whatever you gotta do to have him come here except killing him, but get him in the backstage or I will beat his ass into the center of the earth and back, are we clear? You got all that? You understand what to do?”

The poor girl nodded frantically.

Elesa physically grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, hushering her towards the exit with a hissed: “Go! Go go go! Move!”, only returning to her room once the stagehand had completely disappeared from her sight.

The clamoring had not subsided in the slightest since when she had left it. The voices swam around her head in the high of the moment: found. Found! He had been found. So far away, but he had been found. He was being taken to safety. He was safe. He had been found. Everybody had found out, and immediately thought of her and Emmet. Everybody had wanted to tell them he was safe.

She could not tear up.

She had five minutes worth of make up she couldn’t afford to smear on her face.

A series of seemingly enthusiastic wild hollers snapped her out of her musings, but she tuned back into the conversation only in time to see Iris cling around her half-brother’s neck in tears as Marshal hefted her up.

“What happened, what happened?” Elesa panicked at the confusing reactions.

Skyla answered her first: “It’s all good, they got him on the ambulance, love! They’re taking him and the kid to the hospital!”

“Oh thank - did, did he have-?”

“He could walk, he wasn’t bleeding as far as we could see-”

“IT’S CHEREN TIME NOW!” Roxie decided was the time to flex the strength of her vocal chords: “MARLON, GET HIS ASS ON THE LINE!”

All sound died down in a matter of seconds, only exceptions being the soft jingles that signaled Shauntal leaving and promptly returning to the call as her connection waned and the dialing of Cheren’s contact.

They waited. One ring. Two rings. Three.

Four.

Five.

Then a crackling voice: “Marlon?”

The near insant subsequent explosion of several ‘CHEREN’s from every participant’s mouth must have rattled him off of his seat for the volume, because the Normal type expert gave a protesting hiss: “What the hell- take me off speaker, I’m on an ambulance!”

“We know!” screamed Chili from his screen just in time to be heard before the Water type gym leader complied embarassedly and brought the Xtransceiver to his ear.

Marlon listened briefly, chuckling a little: “He says ‘good for you’,” he reported. Immediately he went back to listening: “Yes, yes I’m back, sorry about - ‘cause we’re worried, you know? ... Yeah, we got the news one way or - yep, he gave us the live commentary. ... Yes, we know. Are you sure it’s him? ... Is he alright?”

Almost twenty breaths were held in.

A sudden knock on the door made Elesa jump.

“You’re up in five minutes!” informed her the stagehand; in a second he was gone once again, not even the time for her to give him the ok.

Five minutes.

That was like saying five seconds.

She had five seconds.

Marlon covered the Xtransceiver with one hand: “He’s good!”

Shauntal’s microphone wailed in bouts of barely human shrieks, Roxie fell off her chair in the enthusiasm of her screaming, and while everybody else gave either relieved sighs or more contained howls of joy Elesa slammed a hand on the side of the desk as if it had been a pinball machine and dragged all Legendaries and heroes of ancient lore from the heavens back on earth with the most liberatory and vulgar expression in the history of any human language before holding herself back from collapsing on herself in hysteric laughter, her head light with an incomprehensible happiness.

She left the call without saying goodbye as she forced herself to inhale breaths hopefully deep enough to steady her trembling hands, hurrying towards the catwalk smiling like she hadn’t in what felt like a lifetime.

Did she notice her steps she was climbing? Did she even realize there were spotlights pointed directly in her eyes? Did she say anything?

When Elesa remembered to blink, she was already in the backstage again, the other models hurrying to change into their usual clothes. The entire thing had slipped out of her consciousness and her body had directed her through the motions the same carefully precise way a plane on autopilot follows the set course on a calm flight.

She rubbed at her eyes as if to wake herself.

Latent electricity sparked within her marrow, awaiting a moment to release.

“Miss Elesa?”

She turned. The stagehand she had manhandled visibly took a step back in fear.

“Mr, uh,” she mumbled, finger pointing somewhere behind herself, “Mr Emmet?, I brought him here, he’s uh, he’s back there-”

The poor girl felt herself squeezed so tight her entire back popped into place by an impossibly strong hug, a small “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” whispered in her ear before the model hastily threw her shoes to the floor and booked it to the direction she had been pointed to.

If somebody was in Elesa’s way as she rushed across the floor, they quickly took care to get out of it as fast as they could in order not to be trampled by her lean but unstoppable form; as soon as her eyes fell on the confused pale face beneath an equally pale hat she flew down the stairs dividing the two of them, entire face positively a-glow.

“ANSWER YOUR XTRANS, ASSHOLE!” she shouted right at him as she finally grasped him in her thin hands: “INGO IS ALIVE!”

Clear eyes widened in disbelief.

“What?” Emmet breathed.

“He’s alive!” she repeated, letting herself laugh openly. She dived her face in his chest and slipped her arms beneath his own, lifting his langly body slightly unto herself: “They’ve found him! Emmet, he’s alive!”

It took a moment more maybe, but she found herself being held back by limbs coursing with renewed strength, tight, tight, and with such a wild joy!

Emmet didn’t speak, he couldn’t at that moment - but he had such a smile, and eyes as humid as leaves coated in morning dew, with a look in them she hadn’t seen in years, and he dug his knuckled into her back as if they were to melt together into a single person, swinging the two of them in place in a jittery manner that had nothing to do with the anxious movement he had tried to devote his energies to in the hopes he would not have to hear his thoughts.

He let her go finally, trembling like nothing else.

“Oh Arceus,” he exclaimed with blown eyes, “Elesa - Elesa, I think I’m going into cardiac arrest.”

Her hands flew to his neck and wrist respectively, checking his pulse to find it faster than light: “No, no, you’re alright,” she reassured him, pushing him kindly to sit down on the chair’s steps, “You’re alright, you’re alright - breathe, breath, in... In and out, follow me, in...”

For a little they just stayed there crouched together, hands clasped on each other’s shoulders while they inhaled long shaky breaths through their nose and exhaled them through shaking lips as best as they could.

The subway master finally looked up. His face was split in half by his grin.

“He’s alive!” he repeated, as if each time he said it the power behind it strengthened exponentially.

“Yes!” the gym leader nodded; neon blue mascara began running down her cheek, and she could have never cared less.

“They, they’ve found him!”

“Yes, yes, in Sinnoh!”

Emmet’s eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t stop smiling: “What on earth was he doing there?” he asked, pronouncing his words strangely, in hiccups, as if his sentence was a zig-zagged line, as if he was giggling.

Elesa shook her head, replying only in a similar tone: “I don’t know!”

Her friend hugged her again and gave a sparce incoherent laugh, and they sat half mad with relief for another ten minutes.

#pokémon #pokemon arceus legends spoilers #submas emmet #pokemon elesa #random writing #MOTHER OF FUCKER THATS A LOTTA TAGS #THATS BECAUSE ITS A LONG ASS CHAPTER BABEY #HOPEFULLY I NEVER DO ONE THIS LONG AGAIN #pokémon black and white #had to take off all the other tags bc otherwise it didnt show up in the damn searches

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