deltacrow
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((so i'm cross posting this from ao3 as an opening gambit to the bulbagarden forums mostly to see if anyone wants to actually read this [and also because ive been updating it but I've been stuck recently & would appreciate feedback]
anyway!! for those of you who weren't there, about 2ish years ago on ao3 there was a small movement started by IsistheSphinx for more self-inserts. we were all self-inserts from and into the same universe-- pokemon had never existed to us. there was interaction between ItS's Bri and the author of TbspFeathers' Arianna [if I'm not mistaken? been a while] and planned interaction between Markus and Bri later on.
so this… obviously happened. as a result.
As this is a self-insert fic, this fic already contains:
--frankly ludicrous amounts of swearing
--transgender issues (body dysphoria, implied misgendering and blatent misgendering done BY the main character)
--references to (consensual and overage) sex (and the lack thereof)
--probably some spelling/grammar errors a beta reader could’ve seen and proofed by now
Please let me know if you’d like to see more below or on ao3!!))
--- ---
On the banks of a placid lake, an older gentleman and his young assistant turn and stride into the woods, before a boisterous young man dashes into its clearing.
The split second between these two events is what's important here, though.
Because between those two moments, a young man sits up, scrubs a hand through his hair and whines, "sweet fucking Christ on a toadstool." This specific young man, who has appeared out of thin air and is finding an impressive amount of ways to swear, has no idea that he's in for the ride of his life; or would be, if there were any vehicles in his immediate future. It's much closer to a walk of his life, or a brisk jog.
The universe at large ponders the appearance of this strange and foul-mouthed individual when another young man careens past the tree line, trips over the one sitting, and throws them both into a patch of grass. (Here is where everything is brought into motion.)
--- ---
"Man, where did you even come from?" The runner complains. "The name's Pearl. I haven't see you around before; you here for a Pokémon too?"
"See, I should be asking you the same thing, Stripes. Markus, and what the fuck?"
"I know, you're supposed to get your first from, like, family, but I can’t wait any longer! Dia would be here, but he can't hurry up to save his life." Pearl combs his fingers through his blond hair- a nervous tick, judging from the state of his bedhead.
That's not what I meant, Markus thinks. What the fuck is a Pokémon. It seems like a commonplace thing, though, judging from how Pearl talks about it (them?), and he's never heard the term before. This is terrible.
Before Pearl can extol virtues of Pokémon to his frankly uncaring audience, another young man enters the clearing, sleepy-eyed and eating a rice cake. "Pearl, who's this?" He asks, while holding out the bag to Pearl.
Pearl reaches in, grabs two, passes one to Markus, and opens his mouth. He manages to introduce Markus, praise Dia's (because this must be Dia) forethought, condemn his tardiness, and inhale the rice cake in one breath. It’s an impressive feat, and one Markus has no time to think about as Pearl grabs Markus' wrist, and drags him further into the grass, towards the shore of the lake. "See, there was this awesome documentary from Johto-- "The Search for The Red Gyarados"! -- And we have a lake, so shouldn't there be something cool living around here?"
Dia nods along absently, but he eyes the underbrush warily. "There's an island in the center of the lake, but nobody around has enough Badges for Surf. That's about it here." Markus manages to free his wrist from Pearl's cast-iron grip, and Pearl uses his newly-empty hand to gesture to the lake around them. Behind his back, Dia murmurs, "honestly, I'm not sure there's anything more interesting than a Bidoof or two around here, but when Pearl's got his heart set..."
Markus knows these kinds of people. They roomed with him in college and demanded use of his GameCube; these are people that are friendly and have a sense of quid pro quo, and people like that seem to talk a little too loosely. But it's like these two are speaking a different dialect, where he can catch enough of the words to place the accent but not enough to have anything make sense.
Maybe his impromptu trip into the woods was a terrible idea. He's getting a niggling suspicion that it was. (He certainly remembers the woods by his house being more swampland than forest.)
Dia must realize that Markus is close to panicking, maybe for not the reason he suspects, because he tilts the rice cake bag towards Markus and silently offers one of the last ones. Markus takes him up on this offer, and wonders why none of the other guys he's met before have ever been this friendly. (Food is a precious commodity in this phase of their lives.)
So of course three teenage boys manage to startle the wildlife enough to attack. Mutant birds fly from the trees and dive-bomb the boys, their bodies as big as Markus' head, wingspans proportional. What kind of steroids are these assholes on?
Pearl drags both him and Dia toward the path through the tree line, but Markus trips over something large and heavy, and they all tumble to the ground. It's a briefcase; nobody has time to wonder who the hell leaves a briefcase at a lake before Dia wards off a bird by waving it around. One slams into it, and Markus braces himself to hear hollow bones shatter on impact. But only feathers drop to the ground and the bird looks disgruntled, not dead.
The impact must have screwed up the locking mechanism, because the briefcase falls open, throwing up papers and some baubles. Pearl yells and dives for them, and tosses a glass-looking ball to Markus. Markus fumbles with the ball thing, pressing a button before it cracks open and a red light shoots out.
(Two thoughts war in his head as this all happens:
First, this was someone's and I broke it, please kill me.
Second, what is this, some kind of anime? Jesus H. Dicks.)
The light solidifies into a chipper monkey with its ass on fire. It screeches and clambers up Markus' leg, before hissing at the birds. Markus notices more of these lights, and sees Pearl and Dia with an angry blue penguin chick and a turtle with a sapling on its head. The birds squawk and scatter, taking off to the treetops to twitter angrily at them.
"Oh, man, they're awesome!" Pearl exclaims, picking up the penguin. "I've never been in a battle before, d'you think they're hurt at all? Do we keep them outside the Pokéball? Guys, what do we do?"
"They're not ours," Dia reminds sadly, petting his turtle, while Markus stares at the monkey on his shoulder and says, "I don't trust anything that breaks the laws of physics." The monkey seems to like this answer, because it rubs its face against his cheek and Markus blurts out, "if I didn't think you'd light me on fire I'd cuddle you forever, no questions asked."
"Oh my god what happened?" A newcomer yells, charging towards the boys. She sees the open briefcase, the papers on the ground, and the three improbable animals, and begins to turn beet red. Her hands clench and she mutters darkly about thieves before Markus realizes how bad this all looks and yelps, "we got attacked! Briefcase shield!"
"Attacked?" She eyes the boys critically, hands still balled, but Dia flips up the lid and showcases the beating it took. Pearl flails towards the trees and mentions "a horde of Starly! They took us by surprise!" She unclenches her fists, a little bit, and calls, "Professor! I found it!" She never takes her eyes off of the boys. Markus thinks, a little hysterically, that he needs to think up some puzzles quickly if he wants a shot of keeping the cuddle monster on his shoulder.
An older gentleman, stern and grandfatherly looking, strides out to meet them. Well, he would be grandfatherly, if all grandfathers walked out of a Conrad story or embodied posh manners and stiff upper lips. Markus never liked Conrad, but he did feel distinctly like prey being sized up before a hunt. The feeling abated, but never passed, as this professor sized up both Dia and Pearl.
The professor hums, clasps his hands behind his back, and barks at them to pick up his fallen papers. The monkey climbs onto the back of Markus' head as he moves, chittering away and pulling on his hair. A lucky coincidence that he's forgotten to get a haircut recently, and that he ditched the stubbly ponytail ages ago. The papers all look pretty interesting-- something about energy and evolution of Pokémon; so they're animals? Huh. -- and takes a look at the appendix. "Hey, uhh, sir?"
"What is it, young man?"
"I-- uhm. Do you have any extra copies of this?"
The professor raises his eyebrow. "Of my unpublished research?"
"No! No, the appendix, I just wanna see what resources you used! It's-- I mean, I only understood like one word in 20, but it looked interesting, and I--"
"That's enough," the professor says, not unkindly. "It was an odd request. Many are not interested in the academic minutiae of the world around us."
"Don't get me wrong, academia is always boring," Markus replies, flushing with embarrassment. "I just... ugh." He flings his hands up, papers fluttering with the motion. "There's too many things I don't get and that's stupid and I hate it." Papers collected and replaced haphazardly, the only thing that remains are the animals-- Pokémon, Markus guesses. He's strangely reluctant to part with it, and Dia looks like he's about to cry as he pulls himself to where the sphere things are. Pearl, no matter how excited he was about playing with his penguin thing, is the first to get to the one that probably contained it. He buries his face in the downy fluff, and presses the button in the center of the-- he called it a Pokéball, earlier-- and Markus feels the need to look away as the red light swallows the Pokémon whole.
Here is another thing he hates, attachment, because nothing good ever stays. The monkey tugs at Markus' hair and whines, before climbing down to his chest and throwing arms around his neck. "Gotta say, bae, I took you for the clingy type, but not like this."
"It seems your Pokémon are quite attached to you already," the professor sniffs. "How curious. Very well! You may keep them."
A collective cry goes up among the youth collective. The girl-- Markus has no idea what her name is-- seems to be on some scale of outrage, talking about wasted research, while Dia and Pearl are celebrating. Markus just smiles a lot, because he's got another set of ears near his mouth, and carefully maneuvers his arms to pet at its head. It chitters happily, nudging its head under his chin. "You're a sweetie," Markus croons. "You got a name I can call you, or should I make one up?"
"It's part of a species known as Chimchar," the professor says, having detached himself from the noisy trio, "and while many trainers tend to refer to Pokémon by their species name, some do prefer to nickname them. Incidentally, that Chimchar is male."
"Thank you, sir. Uhm. I never caught your name."
The professor sighs and straightens out his sweater. "Rowan. I am Professor Rowan. My assistant is Ms. Platinum Berlitz."
"I-- Markus. That's Pearl and-- hey, man, does Dia stand for something or are you cool with just that?"
"Dia is fine."
Pearl looks at Markus curiously, before nodding to himself and engaging Platinum once more in heated debate. It... something about type advantages and training? Markus doesn't even want to know.
"That said," Rowan announces over the din, "I need to see you all within the week at my lab. It's in the next town over, you cannot miss it." He gestures to Platinum, who gathers up the briefcase and dashes after the Professor. She shoots Pearl one last glare and waves to both Dia and Markus over her shoulder.
When the two of them are gone, Pearl drags Markus towards the tree line and invites him to sleep over at his house. "Because you're not from around here, right? How did you get here, anyway? Everyone stops at Twinleaf before Lake Verity, and you looked really surprised at seeing a Pokémon-- this wasn't your first time seeing one, was it? How--"
Dia slaps a hand over Pearl's mouth. "That's enough." Pearl, muffled, says something that only Dia can understand, before licking Dia's hand. Dia rips his hand away and wipes his palm on his pants, and Pearl cackles. The Chimchar chitters and climbs back onto Markus' head, clutching his hair and giving him pigtails.
"But no, really," Dia continues. "It's been a long day. Would your mom mind the two of us over tonight?"
"Dad's taken her out; she'll be home in a few days."
Dia clicks his tongue and steers Pearl, and by extension Markus, down a different path. "Mom's got soup on tonight and won't mind company. Stay with me."
Pearl bemoans his manhandling, and the Chimchar looks on in amusement from Markus' head. Which reminds him: "Hey, did I ever give you a name? Because I am extraordinary at nicknames. One tug yes, two no." The Chimchar pulls at his hair, a hard one-rest-two tugs, and Markus yelps, "Gentle, gentle, I need that hair!"
The Chimchar buries its face in his hair, which he takes as an apology, so he presses on: "see, there's either an etymology route, a physical route, or a spiritual route we could go. Pick one-- careful! Careful!-- oh, man, physical. Okay." The boys watch in bemusement as Markus loses himself in a one-sided conversation with his Pokémon.
"Obvious route is Darwin or Goodall, which are terrible, I agree!-- because evolution and monkeys," (where Dia looks at Pearl and mouths, Mankey? and Pearl shrugs, mouthing no, and puts a finger to his lips) "which is the height of awful, terrible names. Same obvious level and mildly more classy is Charles or, hell, even Jane; same reference, better name, still not good enough, I see. I like Roy-- reference to Fullmetal, always liked his character, excellent development-- speaking of fire and excellent development, what about Zuko? Iroh?"
Markus throws his hands up and sighs, "you are surprisingly picky about this whole name thing, aren't you?" The Chimchar screeches in delight and tugs again at his hair. "I mean, we could go with, say, Kindle, or Flint, or Matchstick or something. Diatom, at the end of a match-- because they burn! So do you! Ahh, stop doing that!-- or, like, Blaze or Inferno or someth-- oh! Inferno?" The monkey tugs once, and swings onto Markus' shoulder to rub their cheeks together, chattering happily all the while.
This one-sided ramble continued from the edge of town to Dia's house, windows open to allow the spring breeze entrance. By the time Inferno had been christened, Dia was unlocking the front door and Pearl was untying his shoelaces.
--- ---
The house itself is warm and inviting, if small: there's a connected kitchen-dining room-living room space on the ground floor, and a unobtrusive door under the stairs that could be a bathroom. Dia's mother-- because with that face, she could be no one else-- greets everyone warmly, head nearly in the pot in front of her. It smells heavenly, and reminds Markus of his own mother, and his promise to be home before dark. (It's just another promise he can't seem to keep.)
“Man, why don’t you put--”
“Inferno.”
“--Inferno into his pokéball?”
Markus squares his jaw, and feels oddly protective of his new friend. “I don’t trust anything that breaks the laws of physics.” Inferno just parks himself on Markus’ left shoulder and preens at the attention lavished on him. When Dia and Pearl look at him oddly, he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “That’s not weird, is it?”
Pearl slaps Dia’s back and yells, “point seven on ‘why Markus isn’t from around here!’”
“Don’t be so... so cavalier about it!” It’s a lot of things that have been chipping into Markus’ composure, and the fact that, in the space of an hour or so, two boys have continuously poked and prodded at his feelings of not-belonging, constantly reminded him of the panic he’s been quashing, that makes his voice crack and his eyes tear. Pearl moans, “oh, no,” and Dia’s mother pushes her son towards the pot before gingerly (everyone is very aware of the angry, flaming monkey) drawing Markus into a hug and moving the party towards the couch. Pearl runs off to get tissues, Dia is steadfastly ignoring everything but stirring the pot in front of him, and Inferno balances on both Dia’s mother’s shoulder and Markus’ before petting his head.
Markus cries into her chest for a good, long while.
--- ---
Dinner is a subdued affair, centered around the coffee table in the living room. Forest green placemats are splayed on the table, magazines pushed to the ground. Inferno is picking at the vegetables and meat left behind in Markus’ bowl, while Markus himself gnaws on a stump of dipping bread.
“I still cannot believe you went through half a loaf. By yourself,” Pearl groans. Markus chuckles. still sounding watery, and mumbles “I did warn you.”
“Don’t you eat the stuff in it? Like a normal person?”
“You and my mother both, dude.” Markus scrubs a hand over his face, and sighs internally. “Okay, clear the air, you’re totally right about the “not being from around here” sh-- fuck, sorry-- oh my god.” Markus laughs, mortified. “I can’t swear here!”
Dia’s mother-- call me Dawn, honey, sorry-- bops him on the back of the head. “I can’t say I’m a fan,” she chastises, “but I have heard worse.” She waves her spoon at the boys around her and yells, “don’t get used to it!”
Markus laughs again, and he really likes Dawn-- she’s a great lady-- but he’s so glad she’s not one of those “call me mom” types. because her haircut and sense of humor reminds him so much of his mother that it would just feel like a slap in the face every time he saw her.
(And he’d be a masochist about it, too: he’d try to use this house as a base, come to ground here if he needs to stay here for a long time. Call it “home” and walk in, yell something stupid or reference a family joke and wait for a response and feel nothing but heartbreak when Dawn doesn’t get a joke that Mom would--)
“I am probably going to start crying again,” Markus announces, and feels rage boil under his skin, at not being able to contain this, not being able to communicate. Dia scrambles for the tissues again-- they’ve been knocked to the floor in favor of food-- and Pearl looks like he’s about to bolt when Markus says “no” and pins him with a look. “I need to talk about this, but I’m probably gonna start crying and make awful jokes.”
Markus takes a deep breath, and feels his chest constrict under his binder and under the weight of emotion, and lets it out. In, two, three, four; rest, two, three, four. Just like in choir: use the least air for the most noise, round your vowels and enunciate so everyone can understand you. Out, two, three, four; rest, two, three, four. Okay, rounding vowels in speech makes you sound terrible, but everything else applies. Know when you start, when your part ends. Take a quick, quiet breath. Open your mouth; begin.
“I don’t know what the hell a Pokémon is.” That was a terrible place to start. Keep going, that was totally on purpose, your audience doesn’t need to know that it wasn’t. “Rephrase,” goddammit, “Pokémon don’t exist where I’m from. Uhm. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of America?” Pearl shakes his head, quick to jump from one topic to another. Markus appreciates this, but Dia and Dawn are still a little shocked over his confession. “Yeah, so, I was out? In the woods by my house? We’re moving-- terrible taxes, small town politics, you know the drill, New Jersey is terrible-- and I just,” a lump forms in Markus’ throat. Inferno climbs into his lap, soup dribbling from his mouth, and twists around to avoid lighting Markus on fire. His tiny, warm weight is terribly comforting, and his gut twists when he’s reminded of the old family dog before she died. Oh boy.
“I just wanted some air, and Mom said it was okay as long as I was back before dinner-- I must have hit my head on something, because I lost a lot of time between the old bike jumps and that lake and then,” A tear, then two, stream down his face, and he can feel it crumple as he waves a hand and sinks into a couch cushion, trying to encompass everything that’s seemed to happen. Everything feels heavy, and he wants to punch someone in their smug-fucker throat, because why him. He had a therapy appointment the next day! He has college! He still hasn’t finished packing! There are a thousand little reasons that mostly add up to Markus can’t handle change well and will panic at the first sign of anything he can’t rationalize.
“I need to get home,” he stresses. Dia nods absently-- after his initial shock of How do you not know what a Pokémon is at all though, he sat there and kept up a poker face like a champ, somehow Markus is less than surprised by this-- and cocks his head toward the stairs.
“First, you need to sleep,” he decrees, and pulls himself up from off the floor and collects plates. “You can borrow some of my pajamas, we’ll be up in a sec.”
Ugh. Shit. Markus gets up and replies, “nah, man, I don’t want to take up space, lemme help with the dishes.” He grabs spoons in one hand and gathers placemats in the other, and nudges Inferno off of his lap with an elbow. “How are you even managing to nap like that, I have it on excellent authority that I am a terrible pillow.”
“What kind of authority is that?” Dawn jokes, elbowing him in the ribs, cheeky grin on her face.
“Nothing like that. I go to college! Sleepovers are terrible on a twin-sized bed.”
“Oh?” She makes grabby hands at Markus and he reluctantly relinquishes his hold on the things in his hands. “These authorities, are they published and peer-reviewed?” He opens his mouth to say yes until he realizes what those wiggly eyebrows mean.
“Oh my god, I’m ace as hell, I didn’t even have to deal with this from my parents...”
Dia and Dawn laugh at that, Dia with quiet, breathy chuckles, Dawn hooting and snorting over Markus’ affronted look. He covers his face and smiles into his palms-- making people laugh, even at small things, has always made him happy.
Pearl walks back in, wearing sweatpants and carrying a backpack and pillow, to another mortified Markus and Dia’s family cackling, slinging innuendos around, and flicking soap bubbles at each other.
He smiles, and hurls the pillow at Markus before wrestling him into a headlock and making up his own sordid details about Markus’ love life.
--- ---
They've retired to Dia's bedroom for the night, a window propped open to let in the cool evening breeze. The Piplup and Turtwig-- because those are totally the scientific names for penguins and leaf turtles-- have been fed and are piled together sleepily.
"Okay, crash course time!" Pearl announces, fumbling with a pair of Groucho Marx glasses. He passes those to Dia, who puts them on with the air of a priest performing sacrament, pushing them up and grabbing a notebook missing half its pages. He pushes it and a pencil towards Markus, admonishing him to "remember the accent over the 'e'" and to "take thorough notes, this will be graded".
Markus looks back to Pearl, who has managed to wrestle himself into a wrinkly lab coat and fished a pair of coke-bottle glasses out of thin-air. Markus chuckles, out of nervous habit. He's not sure if that's the correct response. (The backpack is on the floor and zipped open, but still looks full. Does he have a change of clothes in there? Is everything in there a prop?)
"If anyone asks about why you are missing such important information, you have insomnia--"
"Amnesia," Dia corrects.
"--and cannot remember much past your own name."
"That's stupid and mean," Markus grumbles.
"Do not interrupt the professor while he's professing!" Pearl shouts, flinging a rubber eraser at Markus' head. He clears his throat, and affects a truly awful high-class accent. "This world is widely inhabited by creatures we call POKÉMON," he intones, and Markus can hear the capital letters and over-emphasized "é".
The mood changes immediately when Pearl drawls, "speaking of Pokémon!" Dia sits up and says, "there sure are a lot of types of Pokémon, aren't there?"
"You're absolutely right, Dia! What's your favorite type?"
"Dark."
"Dark? Really?"
"Yeah, tall, dark, and handsome--"
A paper fan whistles through the air and hits Dia over the head. "That’s a type of man, not a type of Pokémon!" They look at Markus expectantly, and he realizes that this was all staged. They are waiting for his reaction.
"I'm pretty sure it'd be funnier if I knew what you were talking about," he blurts out. "How... how long have you had this staged?"
The two of them groan, and Pearl lets the paper fan drop to the floor. "A while," he admits. "But we forgot to factor in our audience!" He moans into his hands. "An entire manzai, wasted!"
Markus feels vaguely uncomfortable. It's going to be a long night, isn't it.
anyway!! for those of you who weren't there, about 2ish years ago on ao3 there was a small movement started by IsistheSphinx for more self-inserts. we were all self-inserts from and into the same universe-- pokemon had never existed to us. there was interaction between ItS's Bri and the author of TbspFeathers' Arianna [if I'm not mistaken? been a while] and planned interaction between Markus and Bri later on.
so this… obviously happened. as a result.
As this is a self-insert fic, this fic already contains:
--frankly ludicrous amounts of swearing
--transgender issues (body dysphoria, implied misgendering and blatent misgendering done BY the main character)
--references to (consensual and overage) sex (and the lack thereof)
--probably some spelling/grammar errors a beta reader could’ve seen and proofed by now
Please let me know if you’d like to see more below or on ao3!!))
--- ---
On the banks of a placid lake, an older gentleman and his young assistant turn and stride into the woods, before a boisterous young man dashes into its clearing.
The split second between these two events is what's important here, though.
Because between those two moments, a young man sits up, scrubs a hand through his hair and whines, "sweet fucking Christ on a toadstool." This specific young man, who has appeared out of thin air and is finding an impressive amount of ways to swear, has no idea that he's in for the ride of his life; or would be, if there were any vehicles in his immediate future. It's much closer to a walk of his life, or a brisk jog.
The universe at large ponders the appearance of this strange and foul-mouthed individual when another young man careens past the tree line, trips over the one sitting, and throws them both into a patch of grass. (Here is where everything is brought into motion.)
--- ---
"Man, where did you even come from?" The runner complains. "The name's Pearl. I haven't see you around before; you here for a Pokémon too?"
"See, I should be asking you the same thing, Stripes. Markus, and what the fuck?"
"I know, you're supposed to get your first from, like, family, but I can’t wait any longer! Dia would be here, but he can't hurry up to save his life." Pearl combs his fingers through his blond hair- a nervous tick, judging from the state of his bedhead.
That's not what I meant, Markus thinks. What the fuck is a Pokémon. It seems like a commonplace thing, though, judging from how Pearl talks about it (them?), and he's never heard the term before. This is terrible.
Before Pearl can extol virtues of Pokémon to his frankly uncaring audience, another young man enters the clearing, sleepy-eyed and eating a rice cake. "Pearl, who's this?" He asks, while holding out the bag to Pearl.
Pearl reaches in, grabs two, passes one to Markus, and opens his mouth. He manages to introduce Markus, praise Dia's (because this must be Dia) forethought, condemn his tardiness, and inhale the rice cake in one breath. It’s an impressive feat, and one Markus has no time to think about as Pearl grabs Markus' wrist, and drags him further into the grass, towards the shore of the lake. "See, there was this awesome documentary from Johto-- "The Search for The Red Gyarados"! -- And we have a lake, so shouldn't there be something cool living around here?"
Dia nods along absently, but he eyes the underbrush warily. "There's an island in the center of the lake, but nobody around has enough Badges for Surf. That's about it here." Markus manages to free his wrist from Pearl's cast-iron grip, and Pearl uses his newly-empty hand to gesture to the lake around them. Behind his back, Dia murmurs, "honestly, I'm not sure there's anything more interesting than a Bidoof or two around here, but when Pearl's got his heart set..."
Markus knows these kinds of people. They roomed with him in college and demanded use of his GameCube; these are people that are friendly and have a sense of quid pro quo, and people like that seem to talk a little too loosely. But it's like these two are speaking a different dialect, where he can catch enough of the words to place the accent but not enough to have anything make sense.
Maybe his impromptu trip into the woods was a terrible idea. He's getting a niggling suspicion that it was. (He certainly remembers the woods by his house being more swampland than forest.)
Dia must realize that Markus is close to panicking, maybe for not the reason he suspects, because he tilts the rice cake bag towards Markus and silently offers one of the last ones. Markus takes him up on this offer, and wonders why none of the other guys he's met before have ever been this friendly. (Food is a precious commodity in this phase of their lives.)
So of course three teenage boys manage to startle the wildlife enough to attack. Mutant birds fly from the trees and dive-bomb the boys, their bodies as big as Markus' head, wingspans proportional. What kind of steroids are these assholes on?
Pearl drags both him and Dia toward the path through the tree line, but Markus trips over something large and heavy, and they all tumble to the ground. It's a briefcase; nobody has time to wonder who the hell leaves a briefcase at a lake before Dia wards off a bird by waving it around. One slams into it, and Markus braces himself to hear hollow bones shatter on impact. But only feathers drop to the ground and the bird looks disgruntled, not dead.
The impact must have screwed up the locking mechanism, because the briefcase falls open, throwing up papers and some baubles. Pearl yells and dives for them, and tosses a glass-looking ball to Markus. Markus fumbles with the ball thing, pressing a button before it cracks open and a red light shoots out.
(Two thoughts war in his head as this all happens:
First, this was someone's and I broke it, please kill me.
Second, what is this, some kind of anime? Jesus H. Dicks.)
The light solidifies into a chipper monkey with its ass on fire. It screeches and clambers up Markus' leg, before hissing at the birds. Markus notices more of these lights, and sees Pearl and Dia with an angry blue penguin chick and a turtle with a sapling on its head. The birds squawk and scatter, taking off to the treetops to twitter angrily at them.
"Oh, man, they're awesome!" Pearl exclaims, picking up the penguin. "I've never been in a battle before, d'you think they're hurt at all? Do we keep them outside the Pokéball? Guys, what do we do?"
"They're not ours," Dia reminds sadly, petting his turtle, while Markus stares at the monkey on his shoulder and says, "I don't trust anything that breaks the laws of physics." The monkey seems to like this answer, because it rubs its face against his cheek and Markus blurts out, "if I didn't think you'd light me on fire I'd cuddle you forever, no questions asked."
"Oh my god what happened?" A newcomer yells, charging towards the boys. She sees the open briefcase, the papers on the ground, and the three improbable animals, and begins to turn beet red. Her hands clench and she mutters darkly about thieves before Markus realizes how bad this all looks and yelps, "we got attacked! Briefcase shield!"
"Attacked?" She eyes the boys critically, hands still balled, but Dia flips up the lid and showcases the beating it took. Pearl flails towards the trees and mentions "a horde of Starly! They took us by surprise!" She unclenches her fists, a little bit, and calls, "Professor! I found it!" She never takes her eyes off of the boys. Markus thinks, a little hysterically, that he needs to think up some puzzles quickly if he wants a shot of keeping the cuddle monster on his shoulder.
An older gentleman, stern and grandfatherly looking, strides out to meet them. Well, he would be grandfatherly, if all grandfathers walked out of a Conrad story or embodied posh manners and stiff upper lips. Markus never liked Conrad, but he did feel distinctly like prey being sized up before a hunt. The feeling abated, but never passed, as this professor sized up both Dia and Pearl.
The professor hums, clasps his hands behind his back, and barks at them to pick up his fallen papers. The monkey climbs onto the back of Markus' head as he moves, chittering away and pulling on his hair. A lucky coincidence that he's forgotten to get a haircut recently, and that he ditched the stubbly ponytail ages ago. The papers all look pretty interesting-- something about energy and evolution of Pokémon; so they're animals? Huh. -- and takes a look at the appendix. "Hey, uhh, sir?"
"What is it, young man?"
"I-- uhm. Do you have any extra copies of this?"
The professor raises his eyebrow. "Of my unpublished research?"
"No! No, the appendix, I just wanna see what resources you used! It's-- I mean, I only understood like one word in 20, but it looked interesting, and I--"
"That's enough," the professor says, not unkindly. "It was an odd request. Many are not interested in the academic minutiae of the world around us."
"Don't get me wrong, academia is always boring," Markus replies, flushing with embarrassment. "I just... ugh." He flings his hands up, papers fluttering with the motion. "There's too many things I don't get and that's stupid and I hate it." Papers collected and replaced haphazardly, the only thing that remains are the animals-- Pokémon, Markus guesses. He's strangely reluctant to part with it, and Dia looks like he's about to cry as he pulls himself to where the sphere things are. Pearl, no matter how excited he was about playing with his penguin thing, is the first to get to the one that probably contained it. He buries his face in the downy fluff, and presses the button in the center of the-- he called it a Pokéball, earlier-- and Markus feels the need to look away as the red light swallows the Pokémon whole.
Here is another thing he hates, attachment, because nothing good ever stays. The monkey tugs at Markus' hair and whines, before climbing down to his chest and throwing arms around his neck. "Gotta say, bae, I took you for the clingy type, but not like this."
"It seems your Pokémon are quite attached to you already," the professor sniffs. "How curious. Very well! You may keep them."
A collective cry goes up among the youth collective. The girl-- Markus has no idea what her name is-- seems to be on some scale of outrage, talking about wasted research, while Dia and Pearl are celebrating. Markus just smiles a lot, because he's got another set of ears near his mouth, and carefully maneuvers his arms to pet at its head. It chitters happily, nudging its head under his chin. "You're a sweetie," Markus croons. "You got a name I can call you, or should I make one up?"
"It's part of a species known as Chimchar," the professor says, having detached himself from the noisy trio, "and while many trainers tend to refer to Pokémon by their species name, some do prefer to nickname them. Incidentally, that Chimchar is male."
"Thank you, sir. Uhm. I never caught your name."
The professor sighs and straightens out his sweater. "Rowan. I am Professor Rowan. My assistant is Ms. Platinum Berlitz."
"I-- Markus. That's Pearl and-- hey, man, does Dia stand for something or are you cool with just that?"
"Dia is fine."
Pearl looks at Markus curiously, before nodding to himself and engaging Platinum once more in heated debate. It... something about type advantages and training? Markus doesn't even want to know.
"That said," Rowan announces over the din, "I need to see you all within the week at my lab. It's in the next town over, you cannot miss it." He gestures to Platinum, who gathers up the briefcase and dashes after the Professor. She shoots Pearl one last glare and waves to both Dia and Markus over her shoulder.
When the two of them are gone, Pearl drags Markus towards the tree line and invites him to sleep over at his house. "Because you're not from around here, right? How did you get here, anyway? Everyone stops at Twinleaf before Lake Verity, and you looked really surprised at seeing a Pokémon-- this wasn't your first time seeing one, was it? How--"
Dia slaps a hand over Pearl's mouth. "That's enough." Pearl, muffled, says something that only Dia can understand, before licking Dia's hand. Dia rips his hand away and wipes his palm on his pants, and Pearl cackles. The Chimchar chitters and climbs back onto Markus' head, clutching his hair and giving him pigtails.
"But no, really," Dia continues. "It's been a long day. Would your mom mind the two of us over tonight?"
"Dad's taken her out; she'll be home in a few days."
Dia clicks his tongue and steers Pearl, and by extension Markus, down a different path. "Mom's got soup on tonight and won't mind company. Stay with me."
Pearl bemoans his manhandling, and the Chimchar looks on in amusement from Markus' head. Which reminds him: "Hey, did I ever give you a name? Because I am extraordinary at nicknames. One tug yes, two no." The Chimchar pulls at his hair, a hard one-rest-two tugs, and Markus yelps, "Gentle, gentle, I need that hair!"
The Chimchar buries its face in his hair, which he takes as an apology, so he presses on: "see, there's either an etymology route, a physical route, or a spiritual route we could go. Pick one-- careful! Careful!-- oh, man, physical. Okay." The boys watch in bemusement as Markus loses himself in a one-sided conversation with his Pokémon.
"Obvious route is Darwin or Goodall, which are terrible, I agree!-- because evolution and monkeys," (where Dia looks at Pearl and mouths, Mankey? and Pearl shrugs, mouthing no, and puts a finger to his lips) "which is the height of awful, terrible names. Same obvious level and mildly more classy is Charles or, hell, even Jane; same reference, better name, still not good enough, I see. I like Roy-- reference to Fullmetal, always liked his character, excellent development-- speaking of fire and excellent development, what about Zuko? Iroh?"
Markus throws his hands up and sighs, "you are surprisingly picky about this whole name thing, aren't you?" The Chimchar screeches in delight and tugs again at his hair. "I mean, we could go with, say, Kindle, or Flint, or Matchstick or something. Diatom, at the end of a match-- because they burn! So do you! Ahh, stop doing that!-- or, like, Blaze or Inferno or someth-- oh! Inferno?" The monkey tugs once, and swings onto Markus' shoulder to rub their cheeks together, chattering happily all the while.
This one-sided ramble continued from the edge of town to Dia's house, windows open to allow the spring breeze entrance. By the time Inferno had been christened, Dia was unlocking the front door and Pearl was untying his shoelaces.
--- ---
The house itself is warm and inviting, if small: there's a connected kitchen-dining room-living room space on the ground floor, and a unobtrusive door under the stairs that could be a bathroom. Dia's mother-- because with that face, she could be no one else-- greets everyone warmly, head nearly in the pot in front of her. It smells heavenly, and reminds Markus of his own mother, and his promise to be home before dark. (It's just another promise he can't seem to keep.)
“Man, why don’t you put--”
“Inferno.”
“--Inferno into his pokéball?”
Markus squares his jaw, and feels oddly protective of his new friend. “I don’t trust anything that breaks the laws of physics.” Inferno just parks himself on Markus’ left shoulder and preens at the attention lavished on him. When Dia and Pearl look at him oddly, he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “That’s not weird, is it?”
Pearl slaps Dia’s back and yells, “point seven on ‘why Markus isn’t from around here!’”
“Don’t be so... so cavalier about it!” It’s a lot of things that have been chipping into Markus’ composure, and the fact that, in the space of an hour or so, two boys have continuously poked and prodded at his feelings of not-belonging, constantly reminded him of the panic he’s been quashing, that makes his voice crack and his eyes tear. Pearl moans, “oh, no,” and Dia’s mother pushes her son towards the pot before gingerly (everyone is very aware of the angry, flaming monkey) drawing Markus into a hug and moving the party towards the couch. Pearl runs off to get tissues, Dia is steadfastly ignoring everything but stirring the pot in front of him, and Inferno balances on both Dia’s mother’s shoulder and Markus’ before petting his head.
Markus cries into her chest for a good, long while.
--- ---
Dinner is a subdued affair, centered around the coffee table in the living room. Forest green placemats are splayed on the table, magazines pushed to the ground. Inferno is picking at the vegetables and meat left behind in Markus’ bowl, while Markus himself gnaws on a stump of dipping bread.
“I still cannot believe you went through half a loaf. By yourself,” Pearl groans. Markus chuckles. still sounding watery, and mumbles “I did warn you.”
“Don’t you eat the stuff in it? Like a normal person?”
“You and my mother both, dude.” Markus scrubs a hand over his face, and sighs internally. “Okay, clear the air, you’re totally right about the “not being from around here” sh-- fuck, sorry-- oh my god.” Markus laughs, mortified. “I can’t swear here!”
Dia’s mother-- call me Dawn, honey, sorry-- bops him on the back of the head. “I can’t say I’m a fan,” she chastises, “but I have heard worse.” She waves her spoon at the boys around her and yells, “don’t get used to it!”
Markus laughs again, and he really likes Dawn-- she’s a great lady-- but he’s so glad she’s not one of those “call me mom” types. because her haircut and sense of humor reminds him so much of his mother that it would just feel like a slap in the face every time he saw her.
(And he’d be a masochist about it, too: he’d try to use this house as a base, come to ground here if he needs to stay here for a long time. Call it “home” and walk in, yell something stupid or reference a family joke and wait for a response and feel nothing but heartbreak when Dawn doesn’t get a joke that Mom would--)
“I am probably going to start crying again,” Markus announces, and feels rage boil under his skin, at not being able to contain this, not being able to communicate. Dia scrambles for the tissues again-- they’ve been knocked to the floor in favor of food-- and Pearl looks like he’s about to bolt when Markus says “no” and pins him with a look. “I need to talk about this, but I’m probably gonna start crying and make awful jokes.”
Markus takes a deep breath, and feels his chest constrict under his binder and under the weight of emotion, and lets it out. In, two, three, four; rest, two, three, four. Just like in choir: use the least air for the most noise, round your vowels and enunciate so everyone can understand you. Out, two, three, four; rest, two, three, four. Okay, rounding vowels in speech makes you sound terrible, but everything else applies. Know when you start, when your part ends. Take a quick, quiet breath. Open your mouth; begin.
“I don’t know what the hell a Pokémon is.” That was a terrible place to start. Keep going, that was totally on purpose, your audience doesn’t need to know that it wasn’t. “Rephrase,” goddammit, “Pokémon don’t exist where I’m from. Uhm. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of America?” Pearl shakes his head, quick to jump from one topic to another. Markus appreciates this, but Dia and Dawn are still a little shocked over his confession. “Yeah, so, I was out? In the woods by my house? We’re moving-- terrible taxes, small town politics, you know the drill, New Jersey is terrible-- and I just,” a lump forms in Markus’ throat. Inferno climbs into his lap, soup dribbling from his mouth, and twists around to avoid lighting Markus on fire. His tiny, warm weight is terribly comforting, and his gut twists when he’s reminded of the old family dog before she died. Oh boy.
“I just wanted some air, and Mom said it was okay as long as I was back before dinner-- I must have hit my head on something, because I lost a lot of time between the old bike jumps and that lake and then,” A tear, then two, stream down his face, and he can feel it crumple as he waves a hand and sinks into a couch cushion, trying to encompass everything that’s seemed to happen. Everything feels heavy, and he wants to punch someone in their smug-fucker throat, because why him. He had a therapy appointment the next day! He has college! He still hasn’t finished packing! There are a thousand little reasons that mostly add up to Markus can’t handle change well and will panic at the first sign of anything he can’t rationalize.
“I need to get home,” he stresses. Dia nods absently-- after his initial shock of How do you not know what a Pokémon is at all though, he sat there and kept up a poker face like a champ, somehow Markus is less than surprised by this-- and cocks his head toward the stairs.
“First, you need to sleep,” he decrees, and pulls himself up from off the floor and collects plates. “You can borrow some of my pajamas, we’ll be up in a sec.”
Ugh. Shit. Markus gets up and replies, “nah, man, I don’t want to take up space, lemme help with the dishes.” He grabs spoons in one hand and gathers placemats in the other, and nudges Inferno off of his lap with an elbow. “How are you even managing to nap like that, I have it on excellent authority that I am a terrible pillow.”
“What kind of authority is that?” Dawn jokes, elbowing him in the ribs, cheeky grin on her face.
“Nothing like that. I go to college! Sleepovers are terrible on a twin-sized bed.”
“Oh?” She makes grabby hands at Markus and he reluctantly relinquishes his hold on the things in his hands. “These authorities, are they published and peer-reviewed?” He opens his mouth to say yes until he realizes what those wiggly eyebrows mean.
“Oh my god, I’m ace as hell, I didn’t even have to deal with this from my parents...”
Dia and Dawn laugh at that, Dia with quiet, breathy chuckles, Dawn hooting and snorting over Markus’ affronted look. He covers his face and smiles into his palms-- making people laugh, even at small things, has always made him happy.
Pearl walks back in, wearing sweatpants and carrying a backpack and pillow, to another mortified Markus and Dia’s family cackling, slinging innuendos around, and flicking soap bubbles at each other.
He smiles, and hurls the pillow at Markus before wrestling him into a headlock and making up his own sordid details about Markus’ love life.
--- ---
They've retired to Dia's bedroom for the night, a window propped open to let in the cool evening breeze. The Piplup and Turtwig-- because those are totally the scientific names for penguins and leaf turtles-- have been fed and are piled together sleepily.
"Okay, crash course time!" Pearl announces, fumbling with a pair of Groucho Marx glasses. He passes those to Dia, who puts them on with the air of a priest performing sacrament, pushing them up and grabbing a notebook missing half its pages. He pushes it and a pencil towards Markus, admonishing him to "remember the accent over the 'e'" and to "take thorough notes, this will be graded".
Markus looks back to Pearl, who has managed to wrestle himself into a wrinkly lab coat and fished a pair of coke-bottle glasses out of thin-air. Markus chuckles, out of nervous habit. He's not sure if that's the correct response. (The backpack is on the floor and zipped open, but still looks full. Does he have a change of clothes in there? Is everything in there a prop?)
"If anyone asks about why you are missing such important information, you have insomnia--"
"Amnesia," Dia corrects.
"--and cannot remember much past your own name."
"That's stupid and mean," Markus grumbles.
"Do not interrupt the professor while he's professing!" Pearl shouts, flinging a rubber eraser at Markus' head. He clears his throat, and affects a truly awful high-class accent. "This world is widely inhabited by creatures we call POKÉMON," he intones, and Markus can hear the capital letters and over-emphasized "é".
The mood changes immediately when Pearl drawls, "speaking of Pokémon!" Dia sits up and says, "there sure are a lot of types of Pokémon, aren't there?"
"You're absolutely right, Dia! What's your favorite type?"
"Dark."
"Dark? Really?"
"Yeah, tall, dark, and handsome--"
A paper fan whistles through the air and hits Dia over the head. "That’s a type of man, not a type of Pokémon!" They look at Markus expectantly, and he realizes that this was all staged. They are waiting for his reaction.
"I'm pretty sure it'd be funnier if I knew what you were talking about," he blurts out. "How... how long have you had this staged?"
The two of them groan, and Pearl lets the paper fan drop to the floor. "A while," he admits. "But we forgot to factor in our audience!" He moans into his hands. "An entire manzai, wasted!"
Markus feels vaguely uncomfortable. It's going to be a long night, isn't it.
