Seeking Evolution (NC-17, ftm!Red/Green) for pyroresonance
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pyroresonance Title: Seeking Evolution
Author:
axolotl Rating: NC-17 (PG-13 if you skip section 22)
Verse: gen 1, some references to gen 2, sort of gen 3 (FR/LG)?
Characters/Pairings: Red/Green, Leaf to trans!Red, Professor Oak
Summary: Leaf grows into Fire, Red grows into a Champion, Green grows into kindness, and a Pokemon tells a dirty joke.
A/N: this sort of got away from me but I hope you enjoy it <3
Eight
Leaf sat sullen on a swing, worrying at a loose thread on her Clefairy. Green called out to her from the top of the slide, words lost on the wind. She kicked her feet, unable to reach the sand.
Nine
“When I grow up,” said Green, “I’m gonna be the Champion, and you can come visit me at the top of a mountain.” He held a small plastic ball in his hand and extended it proudly. “My grandpa’s gonna give me the best starter.”
“What if I want to be the Champion, too?” Red ran a hand through his hair.
Green shook his head quickly. “You’d have to be able to beat me to do that.” It was the most obvious thing in the world. “You can’t have two Champions.”
Ten
“I want to go on a Pokemon journey,” Leaf told her mother.
“Isn’t that a young man’s sort of thing to do? I’d rather have you here, safe with me.”
Leaf considered for a moment, and then nodded. “If I were a young man, would it be my sort of thing to do?”
“That’s not what I meant at all, honey. Fetch the Moo-Moo milk, please?”
Leaf did as she was told, thinking.
Eleven
Red and Green stretched out on the living room carpet, sharing the newest issue of Interviewer’s Questions magazine between them.
“There’s a girl leading a gym,” said Green. “She’s practically our age! Maybe that could be you, someday, when I’m Champion.”
“Her Pokemon are very strong.” Red stared at a picture of a Kadabra standing stonefaced behind a slight girl in purple. “But I’d rather be the Champion and go everywhere!”
Green laughed. “Is your mom even going to let you go?”
Red grumbled and turned the page. “Look, it’s a Charizard. Don’t you want one?”
Green shook his head. “If you get a Charizard, I’ll just get Blastoise.”
“But what if I get a Venusaur?”
“Then I’ll get a Charizard, too! I’ll never lose.”
Twelve
Leaf walked into Professor Oak’s laboratory and all the way to the back room, ignoring rows of equipment and bookshelves and at least one intern fiddling with a Pokedex. She kept her back straight and her arms still until she reached the Professor’s desk, at which point she put down a permission slip and waited.
“I’m afraid I’m all out of starter Pokemon, young...” He adjusted his glasses; she’d tucked her hair up into her hat, and wore a schoolboy’s jacket. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Fire,” said Fire, and was.
“Well,” said the Professor, looking over Fire’s paperwork, “Are you a boy or a girl?”
“Boys go on Pokemon adventures, right?”
The Professor nodded once, and pretended not to notice the ink on Fire’s fingers, the ink that matched the child’s mother’s signature, scribbled awkwardly and still drying. He smiled, and his face softened. “I may have one Pokemon left...”
Thirteen
Red held Pikachu close to his chest, faint sparks coming from the Pokemon’s cheeks, and looked up at Green, standing triumphant with his Eevee at his side.
“I told you I’d win! That’s three out of five, now, cuz I’m the best.”
Red applied a Potion to Pikachu but did not let go of him, looking up at Green, who had started to grow tall and rangy. “You could have made Pikachu faint.”
Green stuck his tongue out. “Uhhhh.... yeah? It was a battle?”
“But he was weak.”
“Are you some kind of fag?” Green glared at Red, and waited, and then blinked. Red shrugged. “Ewwwwww,” said Green, turning around to salvage his dignity. Red wondered what a fag was, until Pikachu sparked again, and they started on to the nearest Pokemon Center, tailing Green by a polite distance.
Fourteen
Green proudly displayed his badge case to Fire, who stared at it blankly. “See? I told you I had ten badges. Look at them. I am the best.”
“But there are only eight badges in Kanto,” said Fire.
“I know this sort of thing is hard for you because you have a smaller brain, but there are gyms in Johto, too, and they give out different badges. I just went and got some of those!” Green puffed up his chest. “You could too, if you weren’t so busy chasing around those guys in black suits all the time.”
“They’re mean to Pokemon,” said Fire, “and besides, there’s lots of trainers to battle right here.”
“Johto has girl trainers who don’t wear pants,” said Green, and Fire winced. “I need to practice against all different styles of trainer so I’m ready to become Champion. I’m so close. I haven’t lost a battle in almost a week.”
“I’ll change that.” Pikachu and Eevee both perked up, staring at Fire, and Green put away his badge case, fingers resting on Pidgeot’s ball.
Fifteen
Lance looked on as the new Champion sat behind glass staring at Green across a table. Green gesticulated angrily, waving a hand in front of an unmoving Red’s face, then flapping his arms like a confused Psyduck, and eventually falling into the chair across the table from Red, breathing hard and clearly emphasizing how hard he was breathing to try to make the Champion flinch.
The Champion did not flinch. Lance was pleased.
After a moment, Red reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small envelope. He slid it across the table, and Pikachu hopped onto his lap as Green opened it. Red had the same look on his face as when he’d tried some particularly tricky move, like calling for a second Protect; Lance wondered if he was asking Green to challenge him for the title again.
Whatever it was, Green’s reaction was volcanic; he tried to push the table out of the way to get to Red, but it was bolted down, so he started to lunge across it before Eevee bit him on the wrist. At that, Green flinched, went still for a moment, and then straightened his back, opened the door, and walked out, Eevee trailing behind.
Green didn’t see Lance, but Eevee did, and glared at him hard enough that Lance wondered if for some reason the Pokemon still knew Mean Look. This was the boy everyone recommended as a new gym leader?
Sixteen
Professor Oak’s office was full of books, most of them ancient, with the occasional electronic gizmo or prototype Pokedex half-open on a surface of reference materials. There was enough room on his desk for exactly two mugs — one near where his right hand would fall, and one on the opposite edge of the desk so that a visitor could theoretically rest their coffee somewhere. Fire, still not having a taste for coffee, had tea in his mug instead. He looked small in the highback chair, eyes almost vanishing beneath his hat, gloved hands around his tea.
“Well,” said the Professor, “there have been some findings about Pokemon changing their sex when they evolve. Azumarill, for example, although the data we have on this is unfortunately very limited. Most Pokemon are hard to sex visually, and all of those who can be identified trivially are gonochorists.” Fire looked up. “That is, they can’t change sex.” Oak took a sip of coffee. “I forget you aren’t actually versed in the literature — your findings are among the most useful I’ve had in years.”
“I appreciate the time you took to research this.”
“Oh, son, don’t feel you have to flatter me!” Wrinkles spread out from his smile. “I am a researcher; when you presented the question, there was nothing I could do but spend the time.” He tapped the rim of his mug with his finger a few times, staring off into space. “Unfortunately, while this phenomenon has been observed in Pokemon and the data is credible, there’s very little about similar phenomena in humans. I sent out a letter — discreetly — to a few colleagues, and while there are apparently a couple of doctors in the Unova region making incomplete changes with chemicals, there’s nothing like what you’re looking for.”
Pikachu hopped onto Fire’s lap and headbutted his hand until he started scratching behind the Pokemon’s ears.
Seventeen
Green dropped another parcel of supplies off at the top of Mount Silver, grumbling the entire time.
“You don’t have to do this,” Red said.
“Yes, I do,” Green responded. “Otherwise you’d die up here, you fucking idiot.”
Eighteen
Lyra was waiting for him in his gym office when he got back from dropping off food for Fire.
“You should just admit you care about him already,” she said, Typhlosion behind her nodding. Green pushed past her and over to his desk, where he sat down and shook his head.
“He’s not even a real he.”
“That’s funny, because it seems like he’s more of a man than you are.” Green stood up and reached for his Pokeballs; Lyra put her hands in the air, palms up. “See? That’s not being a man, that’s just being an asshole.”
Green sat back down, his face bright red. “What do you know about being a man? You’re a teenage girl.”
Lyra shrugged. “I know that when someone introduces himself by a man’s name, and wears men’s clothes, and is willing to put up with all sorts of shit from what passes for his best friend, and goes up on a mountain to fucking contemplate his gender for three years, he’s probably not a woman, and treating him like one is about the jerkiest thing you could possibly do.”
“You never used to talk like that before you became Champion.”
“The redhead’s rubbing off on me, and you’re avoiding the point.”
Green slumped forward, chin in his hands. “So you think he’s really a dude?”
“I don’t know,” said Lyra. “Maybe you should ask him. He’d know better than a teenage girl.”
Nineteen
Green dropped another parcel of supplies off at the top of Mount Silver, grumbling the entire time.
“You don’t have to do this,” Red said.
Green paused a moment. “You’re right, I don’t. And I do it anyway.”
“Why?”
Green looked down the mountain, the snow’s edge ragged with pines. “So that if you come down, you won’t forget me.”
“When,” said Red.
Twenty
Green and Fire sat on the fence of the empty playground in Pallet Town, watching the moon’s reflections on playground equipment.
“You’re not a Pokemon, though. You can’t just evolve.” Fire shrugged at that. “I mean, it’s a nice thought and... I guess, if you could, it would be okay with me.”
Fire’s lip twitched. “Really?”
Green stretched out his arms, and then picked a splinter of wood off of the fence and turned it around his fingers. “Yeah, I guess. It’d make you happy, right?”
“You want me to be happy?”
The word “Yes” was heavier in Green’s mouth than he knew a word could be, and a moment later, “I’m sorry” was lighter than words had been before, as if it lifted his head up into the stars.
Fire’s smile was a man’s smile, and also, Green realized, beautiful.
Twenty-One
When Red came down from the mountain, he’d half expected fanfare, or at least the bustle of the Pokemon League around him, but instead there was just tall grass and warm sun and the occasional Rapidash galloping by. Every once in a while he saw an Ace Trainer or a Hiker as he worked his way down Victory Road, but none of them seemed to recognize him; he was just another trainer wandering through, and since he didn’t cross their paths directly, they let him go on his way.
A year and a half later, wandering through Viridian City still felt like that; he wasn’t invisible, quite, but no one cared. There was a brief flurry of publicity that was as uncomfortable as it was familiar, but when he didn’t battle and he didn’t challenge Lyra and he didn’t really do much of anything except take long walks it just... fizzled, and he was alone again, holed up in an apartment like it was a mountain. Green still brought him food, he still flew to Pallet Town to visit Professor Oak occasionally in secret, and his Pokemon grew quietly stronger.
Today when he went to visit Green, the Gym was empty. He had come on a Sunday again; the unlocked doors meant Green was probably in his office working on league business. While his desk had been a broad expanse of bare wood when Red first arrived, it was beginning to accumulate paperwork and articles and books and even one or two pieces of electronic junk. There was still room for more than two mugs — Green’s, of course, and the seat Red usually took, and a couple more for Ace Trainers — but it was beginning to be a near thing.
“It’s a Sunday,” said Green, “that’s why there’s no one here.”
“You’re here.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a lot to do, I’m hosting a Gym Leaders Tournament as a fundraiser in two weeks and we’re going to need way more seating in case it’s raining, one of the Aces wants to record the matches and do commentary but we don’t have cameras set up outside, Bugsy is still waffling about even showing up—”
“I could play.”
“You’re not a Gym Leader,” was Green’s automatic reaction, and then “You haven’t battled in years,” and then “You’d crush them all.”
“I’d crush you?”
Green shook his head and grinned. “Not a chance. But I’m not in the tournament, I’m judge and MC.”
“We could be the featured battle.”
Neither of them spoke for a while, Green drinking coffee and Red sitting with his hands folded in his lap.
“Do you actually want to battle?”
“No,” said Red, “But I want to help, and battling is what I know how to do.”
Green laughed. “Just start working on something else, and in a couple of years you’ll be better than me at it. I promise.” There was no malice in Green’s voice, and a knot that Red hadn’t been aware of untangled itself in his stomach.
Twenty-Two
When he had read the same sentence three times, Green reminded himself that the point was not to be able to focus on his paperwork as he squeezed Fire’s hair and pulled his head back a bit, careful not to hit the top of his desk. He folded over the trainer application he was reviewing and closed his eyes, noticing that he was breathing heavily, noticing that the room was spinning a little, noticing just how warm Fire’s breath was.
“I, uh.” Green pushed his chair back slowly, and Fire popped up, licking his lips. “I should clear off my desk, and...”
Fire slid up Green’s body, pushing his chair back and covering Green’s body. “And what.”
Green swallowed, balancing so that his chair wouldn’t topple backward, pressing his thighs into Fire’s worn denim. “And have plenty of room to focus on you.”
Fire stepped back, and Green rocked forward, catching himself on the desk. “Oh, I can give you that.” He took a half-step forward, and dropped briefly out of what Green realized was battle posture. “Is any of this important?”
Green shook his head, saying “It’s not important enough to —” Fire pushed all of the paperwork off of one half of the desk in one sweep before Green could object. “Hey, that’s going to —” Fire grabbed the back of Green’s neck and kissed him fiercely, pulling him up to standing and then pushing him over the desk.
“You said you wanted to clear off your desk.” Fire shushed Green with a finger, and waited for Green to close his eyes. “You said you wanted to focus on me.” He pulled Green’s slacks all the way down, and teased the base of Green’s spine. “I’m going to help you with those things.”
Twenty-Three
“You’re getting the itch again, aren’t you.” Green finished pouring Red’s coffee and walked back over to the counter, picking up two bowls of cereal. “You’re not sleeping, and you’re doing that zone-out thing.” Red looked down into his coffee and said nothing. Green sat down and pushed a bowl of cereal toward Red, taking a spoonful of his own and chewing. He put his spoon down and spoke quietly. “I won’t take you back to the mountain, but what would you say to taking some time off and traveling for a while? Try to fill a few of those last holes in the Pokedex, visit a couple of the legendaries we haven’t seen in a long time?”
Red picked up his spoon and started to eat the cereal.
“That’s a yes, right?”
Red nodded.
“I mean we can’t go right away, but I’ll start looking for coverage for the gym.”
Red looked back down at his coffee.
“But I won’t work this weekend.” For once, mouthed Red. “And we can go hiking?”
“And train our Pokemon.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to take work home,” said Green, and they both smiled.
Twenty-Four
Fire and Green sat together on the steps of the Ilex Shrine, Celebi flitting around their heads and sprinkling some sort of time glitter around them a few seconds before it arrived in any given location.
I’ve made the change you’re about to request, but it will only change things for a different you.
“A different Fire?”
Yes, a Fire-Red. I used magic! I had to get help from Mew when I told me that you will’ve asked me for something. Mew is very helpful. Mew is a friend Pokemon!
“You already know what I’m going to ask for, then.” Green put a hand on Fire’s shoulder.
Sexed humans are even odder than sexed Pokemon!
Fire looked up at Celebi, who hung still in the air watching him while another impression of it wandered into a tree, transparent. “So you can make me born a different way.”
It changed almost nothing! Usually when someone asks me to change something in the past it changes everything about the future and it’s a mess and Dialga gets very upset with me and that whole timeline has to get turned off. I do it anyway because turning timelines on and off is fun! But these timelines are the same aside from little details that only humans would care about, so no one got angry.
Fire made a face. “So you already did it? How come I’m not...”
Celebi tsked, two copies of itself waving their fingers before one of them vanished into sparkly dust. Because you were already born this way! I can’t go back in this time, that would be impossible. It’s preposterous! That’s like asking me to unhave breakfast. I already ate it! It was a delicious berry. Red is really nice, though, so it’s all okay! He’ll be just as confused by this conversation as you were.
“So you didn’t change me me, just some other me.”
Yup! He’s taller and his friend Pikachu has a slightly different stripe on his tail. Celebi pointed behind itself to an imaginary tail, which briefly ghosted into existence. I’m not sure how that happened. It’s a mystery!
Fire smiled. “You like mysteries?”
Mysteries are almost as great as time!
“How come female Marills can evolve into male Azumarills?”
I like you! You ask good questions! Celebi hung in the air thinking, and then another Celebi flew out of the shrine to continue the conversation while that one disappeared. Mew said it was about balance and made a very dirty joke.
Green raised a finger. “Where does Mew live?”
In history! Mew is a wonderful friend Pokemon.
Green’s face fell neatly into his palm. “I’m going to have to take more time off of work, aren’t I.”
“Don’t worry,” said Fire. “I’ll make it up to you.”
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(Anonymous) 2012-12-30 08:26 am (UTC)(link)-Pyro (sorry can't login on my phone!)