aiko's otter den

for a squall and an outside starry sky - Cerulean Cave supposedly has a monster in it, a powerful pokemon said to level buildings. That is not what Khun finds there, or is it? LGP/LGE AU

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2. Skin Crawls

Isu is no longer sitting on Hatz. There’s only so much he can sit on skin and bone before it hurts his ass. Hatz claims he has a healthy diet, just a strong metabolism. Isu, having seen his regular grocery order, believes the latter more than the former.

“If he’s dead, you’re on dish duty forever,” he promises, looking at Hatz, who is busy sharpening his honedge. He, of course, is immune to being drained of life due to reasons the swordsman will never explain.

Hatz looks up from wiping the blade with a cloth. “Earrings will be fine, Isu.” His friend’s voice is soft and calm. “He has multiple escape routes, a champion’s team and the most tsundere eevee known to mankind. If he’s not fine, I’ll even buy new dishes.”

Isu grumbles. “Well… maybe. He’s our friend.”

“You should have more faith in him if he is.”

Isu sighs and lays back on the pokemon center bed. Togepi wriggles up onto the bed and onto his stomach. “Why do you always have to sound sane at times like this?”

“I’m perfectly reasonable all the time.”

“Right, and Endorsi isn’t in the contest scene for the free makeup.”

Hatz snorts. “She’s in it for the popularity, not the makeup.”

“It can be both, you know.”

They work in silence, Isu playing with the baby pokemon’s spikes and Hatz sharpening honedge to the sound of wispy contented hums.

Then the door slams open. Isu sits up so fast Togepi nearly rolls off the bed if not for his quick hands. Hatz merely straightens up and lets honedge float away to hover behind him.

Good for Isu’s heart, it’s Khun. He’s dripping wet like a drenched pikachu and nearly grinding his teeth, but he’s fine. He turns around towards… something. “Come on,” he says, in a gentler voice than his face really represents. “Get inside. I think Shibisu here has a spare tracksuit.”

The other person sneezes. “Okay… thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You’re the one living in a sheet with no shoes.”

They laugh. “I guess so.”

The person walks in and Isu wants to adopt them on the spot. They look an actual mess, ratty hair and all.

Hatz pauses. “You said you were going to send a picture of the pokemon, not bring home a person.”

“There wasn’t one.” Khun says this flippantly, as he pulls a towel from the rack. “Just this kid with some ditto. If there was a monster, I’m assuming Corona’s morning breath scared them off.”

He runs a towel over his hair. “Bam, the bathroom is over there. I’ll run you a bath, so go wait there.”

The stranger — Bam, apparently — is busy looking around the room in wonder. He snaps to attention at Khun’s words and nods, moving towards the only other room in the shared space. When the door clicks shut, Khun sags. “You still owe me the favors, hara-kiri.”

“I’m not doing favors for your hair,” Hatz snips.

Khun bristles and, this time, Isu intervenes for the sake of his health. “What happened, Khun?”

Khun grumbles and goes back to drying off. “Nothing really. A few fights and I found him there with some pokemon. Other people have been there because he somehow got his hands on a Key Stone. On the way back here, he wouldn’t tell me who gave it to him. But he says he’s been told to stay there, and he’s always been there and the only reason I think anyone would stick a non-trainer in a cave full to the brim of dangerous pokemon is, well… Rocket.”

“Like Jahad’s son or something?” There had been rumors of that for a while. Isu remembers there were a couple of blond kids smuggled out during the raids of Silph Co. Raids that Isu had not actually taken part in, no sirree.

“Yeah, but not. I don’t think he’s quite like that.” Khun digs in his bag. “We can figure it out later. Right now he needs clothes and trainer gear. Because he really likes Altair and has a Key Stone. I’m sure the professor will want him as a trainer immediately.”

Isu looks over and sure enough, the eevee is scratching at the bathroom door. “Hey,” Khun snips. “Not our house, don’t damage it.”

The eevee huffs and leaps onto his head. Khun accepts this with minimal grace.

“You’re not wrong about that.” Hatz makes a face. “Couldn’t you just give him a clefairy and let him loose?”

“I could,” Khun allows. “But I won’t. So help me out, you owe me now.”

Hatz mutters a curse under his breath and Khun smirks before disappearing into the bathroom.

---

Bam sits on the toilet. It’s not as small as the one before… before. The bath is nice. There’s a clean sink, and it doesn’t smell quite like antiseptic like everything had. Before it had smelled like ash and soot, anyway.

It’s nice. The three outside have safe smells, excitement in their blood. Their pokemon chat softly about their warmth and kindness —

It will be your son, this time. I promise.

Bam swallows. They wouldn’t hurt his friends, he thinks.

He wonders what Rachel will think when he’s not there. If she ever comes back. She had made it sound like she wasn’t coming back, after Yuri-noona came to visit.

He wonders if he can call Yuri-noona now that she’s outside. He has her number memorized. It shouldn’t be hard…

Mi giggles in his mind. He looks up at the ceiling. “You shouldn’t be there,” he thinks at her.

Xey snigger and float down, flopping into his hair instead. He almost takes them off on reflex but decides against it.

A part of him wonders if he’ll be safe like this. If he is okay to be out here and not staying in the cave. After all, he’s not a pokemon or a person, really. And she put him there for a reason.

Then again, Bam muses. People still showed up.

Maybe wandering outside for a while will throw people off. He can go back later.

Mew vanishes with a pop as the door cracks open. Khun comes bustling in with a lot of things, Altair at his heels. She prances up and hops into Bam’s lap without further ado. Bam strokes behind her ears, watching Khun lay things out around the sink.

“Uhm.” He starts, then stops as Khun looks at him. “What’s… all this?”

“This,” Khun says in a matter-of-fact voice. “Is me calling in my first favor. You need clothes, a shower, and a haircut.”

“You shouldn’t use your favors on me!” Bam protests. He’s already trespassing on Khun’s kindness as it is.

“It’s this or I use it to make him cluck like a spearow at dawn.” Khun scoots past him and turns on the faucet. “Bath or shower? It’s free either way.”

“… Shower,” Bam says after a moment, reluctant. He hasn’t liked baths in a long time. Khun adjusts it. “But those clothes, they must…”

“You’re doing me a favor if you take one less tracksuit away from Shibisu,” Khun says before he can find the words. “We’ll get you a trainer card and a pokemon or two and then you can pay me back when you’ve kicked every Youngster Joey and their top percentage rattata across Kanto. Deal?”

Bam fidgets. Kindness came with something to be returned. Usually it was to work harder during a test, or not to scream. Sometimes it was to move an object through the glass. Once it had been—

Throb.

Red.

He puts the images of red away. It wasn’t always eyes, after all.

“Deal,” he says.

Khun nods as the spray of water splashes down. He steps back and turns around. “Let me know when you’re in and the curtain’s closed. I need to change, too.”

Oh! That’s right. He did. Bam drags the sheet over his head, followed by the pendant Yuri had given him. He leaves it on top of the toilet seat before stepping into the water and under the spray. He doesn’t feel it at first, but then it hits his back. He hisses.

“Are you okay?” There’s a low thud, like a ball hitting the bottom of something hard. A few containers — human cleaning supplies, toiletries he thinks they’re called — slide onto the rim of the tub.

“Yes, I uhm… Old wounds. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Khun’s voice sounds wooden, but sympathetic. “Will you be okay with the soap?”

“Yes! I should be fine.” He knows how to use these things. Rachel had brought them sometimes, although she claimed the water he bathed in was gross, too. It just had moss in it. And leaves? What was wrong with that? It didn’t smell like his blood so…

Khun hums thoughtfully. “Are you attached to your hair?”

“Mm?” Bam thinks about it. At least Khun-ssi isn’t asking about the key stone or mew or anything right now. He can’t answer. He’s not supposed to answer, it’s not safe.

Well, if Khun is a really strong trainer, maybe he can tell him some of it. If all he wants is information, it would be rude not to. And Rachel said not to betray other people’s trust and he doesn’t want to do that so…

“Not much!” he admits. “My ears get cold easily.”

“Kanto’s winters are probably not terrible like Sinnoh’s but we’re in mid-April now. So it won’t be too hot or cold. Will rain like an Akala summer though.”

Bam knows about half of those terms but doesn’t ask to get them explained. Under the careful work of his fingers, his hair falls down loosely against his back.

“Khun-ssi,” he says after a moment. “I’m really grateful to you, but why uhm… why didn’t you just leave me there?”

There’s a moment of silence when Khun answers. “Because who would look at you and think it’s okay to leave you there?”

Rachel, Bam thinks but doesn’t say.

“Also legally, you shouldn’t have been there, anyway. That’s supposed to be a preserve for rare pokemon. Whoever told you to stay there was being inconsiderate to the environment, especially if they came and went bringing you things. You couldn’t exactly throw anything out. So it led to environmental damage. Small but there. Not your fault, though. It’s the fault of the person who made you stay.”

Bam knows what Khun is doing. He’s being unsubtle on purpose, he thinks, but also giving Bam the choice not to answer.

“Her name’s Rachel,” he says after a moment. “She was told to do it, I think? I was in another part of the cave for a while but… I got bored and started exploring. Since I didn’t leave, she didn’t get worried or anything. It was better. The pokemon were always… they looked out for me.”

Khun hums in contemplation. Then he pauses. “Does Rachel have blonde hair? Red dress, carries around a pikachu?”

“Yes? Do you know her?”

“She sounds like an intern with the professor I want to see tomorrow. To check your key stone out. I think she’s busy off in Johto to meet with a specialist.”

Bam’s heart buoys with relief. Oh, she wasn’t gone because of their fight. It wasn’t his fault. She’d be back.

And he wouldn’t be there when she got back.

… Hopefully, she’d forgive him.

---

Khun waits for Bam to get out of the shower. He has everything ready for a nice haircut and clothes. And he knows he probably shouldn’t. Getting the kid out of the cave and rain should be enough.

But the whole walk back, Bam had looked up at the cloudy sky or at every little thing around him with wonder and sorrow and something fond. Like he knew them from books and someone else’s words, but they’d never been real until now.

It’d been such a strange, unhappy smile, tethering Bam to Khun like a rope.

He wishes he could explain why.

Bam turns off the faucet and Khun passes him lotion, underwear from the pokemon center and Shibisu’s tracksuit along with a spare t-shirt. He doesn’t bother with socks yet, laying the dirty sheet and some plastic on the floor as Bam steps out. Of course, Isu’s tracksuit is black and too big for Bam, so he looks like he has paws.

Bam smiles sheepishly. Khun smiles back, and he doesn’t know why.

By the time they’re both done, Bam’s hair is barely reaching his ears. Khun tosses the sheet and hair into the garbage. Hatz all but shoos them out of the bathroom. Khun flips him off and Bam turns to see Isu laying out their sleeping bags as a mattress for Bam to sleep on.

Bam tries to protest, even gets as far as an apology, but Isu waves him off.

When Bam gives in and lays down, he’s out cold in thirty seconds.

Khun and Isu share a look. Isu steps outside to call the professor and Khun goes to feed his hungry gremlins. They come back to Hatz, taking a picture of the babies (and Altair) on Bam’s stomach and chest. He hasn’t moved even once.

Despite himself again, Khun smiles to himself.

Larka floats on her tail over to the group, squeaking softly as she looks them over. Bam’s face scrunches up and he opens his eyes. Purple light flickers over his skin for the briefest instant.

Khun freezes up. Larka chitters at him. Bam lifts his head and chitters back. Then he closes his eyes again.

“Gustang didn’t pick up,” Isu says quietly when he returns.

“Damn.” He hated when people went to the Pokemon Mansion alone if they’d already unlocked the gym. “We’ll try tomorrow. Thanks anyway.”

When Khun finally goes to bed, it’s an uneasy sleep. He keeps seeing Bam’s eyes with purple pupils and a Mew looking at him and finding him wanting.

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