Shaun Mars (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
neededlassie) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
route_10652014-08-07 08:32 pm
neededlassie) wrote in route_10652014-08-07 08:32 pm
Entry tags:
There's an endless road to rediscover
Who: Shaun Mars and Yusuke Urameshi
Where: Olivine
When: mid-July something or other - after they've been bumming around about a month
Summary: Discussion about where to go next turns into a feelings jam. [Potential spoilers for Heavy Rain]
Rating: Probably PG-13, maybe R if you think that child-murder warrants a rating increaseor if Yusuke exceeds the allotted amount of swears that's also entirely possible
Log:
By the time Yusuke got to Shaun, now slightly less drowned-rat-like after the rain let up enough for him to let his Charizard out to keep warm by, the younger boy had been so happy to have company that he was able to push all those anxious thoughts and fears to the back of his mind. When the random snow showers came, he and Yusuke spent all day playing in it, throwing snowballs at each other and using their teams to form ambushes. And the fun didn't stop just because they made it to Olivine. They annoyed the lighthouse staff and trained their teams and basically everything fun to do in Olivine.
Except go near the beaches.
It's been about a month and Shaun still doesn't go any closer to the sandy shore than the nearest building, and he's been taking his time challenging the gym (even though he knows he's not going to have a problem with it). There's an ice cream stand near the lighthouse that has really great value, and they have pokemon-friendly ice cream, too, and it being the middle of summer it's a pretty great treat every so often to just get some ice cream and cool down from training and goofing off all day.
"You know what my favorite thing about being here is? Besides all the people I met that I wouldn't have gotten to know back home. Not having to worry about going back to school."
Where: Olivine
When: mid-July something or other - after they've been bumming around about a month
Summary: Discussion about where to go next turns into a feelings jam. [Potential spoilers for Heavy Rain]
Rating: Probably PG-13, maybe R if you think that child-murder warrants a rating increase
Log:
By the time Yusuke got to Shaun, now slightly less drowned-rat-like after the rain let up enough for him to let his Charizard out to keep warm by, the younger boy had been so happy to have company that he was able to push all those anxious thoughts and fears to the back of his mind. When the random snow showers came, he and Yusuke spent all day playing in it, throwing snowballs at each other and using their teams to form ambushes. And the fun didn't stop just because they made it to Olivine. They annoyed the lighthouse staff and trained their teams and basically everything fun to do in Olivine.
Except go near the beaches.
It's been about a month and Shaun still doesn't go any closer to the sandy shore than the nearest building, and he's been taking his time challenging the gym (even though he knows he's not going to have a problem with it). There's an ice cream stand near the lighthouse that has really great value, and they have pokemon-friendly ice cream, too, and it being the middle of summer it's a pretty great treat every so often to just get some ice cream and cool down from training and goofing off all day.
"You know what my favorite thing about being here is? Besides all the people I met that I wouldn't have gotten to know back home. Not having to worry about going back to school."
no subject
No surprises there, really. After all, he'd only just woken up from one of those weird comas the day before - you know, the ones where you fell asleep and went home, but then woke up a week later to discover that you'd somehow still been in this world the entire time, just unconscious and unresponsive to any shenanigans your friends may or may not have tried to pull on you while you were out. (Looking at you, Killua.) Given how much of a trainwreck things had been at home and how utterly furious he'd been when he was brought back here before he could resolve any of it (which is to say, murder the shit out of the guy who'd helped mess everything up in the first place), it almost goes without saying that he'd been pretty preoccupied when he caught Shaun's message.
That said, seeing Shaun looking wet and miserable as hell had been enough to get him to respond almost immediately, and the decision to come hang out with him for a while had been made quickly thereafter - so quickly that it hadn't been until he was already halfway on his way there that he'd started to have second thoughts, not because of Shaun (never because of Shaun), but because he suddenly found himself uncertain as to whether or not he was the one who should be looking out for him. For one thing, he didn't know much about taking care of kids; for another, he had so much of his own shit going on that he couldn't help but worry if he'd be really be able to set all of it aside so that he could take care of Shaun. He wasn't going to beat himself up for feeling crappy about what was, quite frankly, kind of a crappy situation, but that didn't mean he wanted it to negatively impact Shaun. Hell, the absolute last thing Yusuke wanted was to let Shaun down, especially if it was just because he couldn't pull his head out of his ass.
As it turned out, though, he didn't actually have that much to worry about. He'd already known that Shaun was a smart kid, but he could take care of himself better than Yusuke had given him credit for. In retrospect, he probably should've known better - Shaun had spent the last couple of months travelling by himself, after all, and hell, if there's anyone who ought to know about how quickly kids learn to be self-sufficient when they're on their own, it's Yusuke. Either way, most of his time spent with Shaun was spent just kind of hanging out with him rather than keeping an eye on him and making sure he didn't fall in a ditch or something like he'd expected it would be, and so far it had been... a lot of fun, actually. More fun than Yusuke had had in weeks.
That wasn't to say that the gloom and the frustration he'd been entrenched in since the Sensui case wrapped up didn't still creep up on him, of course, because it did, usually in the dead of night when everything was too damn quiet and he knew that the only thing any efforts to get to sleep would lead to was him startling awake a couple hours later. (Friggin' nightmares.) But having Shaun around took his mind off things, and more than that, it kept him from just doing what he'd done back home and coping with his problems by retreating into himself. Can't exactly fuck off by himself when he's got a kid looking to him to help him give the security guard at the lighthouse a headache, can he?
(It's strange. The whole reason he'd started travelling with Shaun in the first place was so that he could provide him some company and help him feel less lonely. Now he's begun to suspect that Shaun's helping him more than the other way around. Funny how that worked out, huh.)
Speaking of the lighthouse security guard, the ice cream stand he and Shaun had decided to stop at after they'd wrapped up their training for the day was close enough to the lighthouse itself that Yusuke could see the guy lingering outside the door. He didn't miss the series of suspicious sideways looks the guy was throwing their way, either. Being as accustomed to dudes in uniforms giving him the stink eye as Yusuke was, he wasn't particularly bent out of shape about it. In fact, after making awkward eye contact with him for the umpteenth time, he even spared the guard a cheerful wave and a (shit-eating) grin. Hi there, Officer Friendly. Nice weather today.
He returned his attention to Shaun when he heard him speak up, huffing out a bit of a laugh at his words.
"Chyeah, no kidding. I dunno about your teachers, kid, but mine're a pain in the ass."
Not that there was much of a chance he'd have to deal with them again in the foreseeable future even if he wasn't currently stranded in Stupid Magic Animal Land, of course. Yusuke doesn't mention that.
The ice cream vendor reached across the stand, holding out their respective orders. Yusuke took the two cones he'd ordered and passed one of them off to the Lucario fidgeting impatiently at his side. He'd insisted on paying for both his stuff and Shaun's - not something he would do for most people, being the serial cheapskate that he is, but for Shaun, it only seemed natural. Puu was there with them too, of course, but had trilled out a polite refusal when asked if he wanted anything. He wasn't a particularly huge fan of ice cream, really. It made his feathers all sticky.
Once they both had everything they ordered (for themselves, and for their Pokemon as well), Yusuke turned away, leading them to a nearby bench.
"You know what else is pretty cool in my opinion? Bein' able to hit the beach whenever I feel like it. There're beaches 'n shit outside Tokyo that you can get to if you take the train, but I've never actually gone to any of 'em. Was always too busy with other stuff."
Like giving over half the gangs in the city reason to shit their pants at the sight of him. And also, you know, saving humanity.
no subject
But that didn't make him unable to recognize that something was on his friend's mind, even if Yusuke was trying to hide it from him. He had been fine traveling alone, really, with all of his pokemon for company. But it was one of those things, you don't realize how much you miss having another person around until you get the chance to hang out with them every day. It was nice, having another human there. And at first, Shaun had been making sure not to do anything dumb that would make Yusuke regret coming to hang out with him. But over time, he'd become less and less worried that Yusuke would decide to leave, and more and more it turned into just plain old hanging out. He had missed having a constant presence to look up to - sure, seeing his other big brother figures every so often was great, but having Yusuke around every day felt less like just having a big brother figure, and more like just...having a big brother.
It surprised Shaun, when he realized how easy it was to feel like a little brother again instead of an only child.
(Shaun's Musharna, Bella, had noticed that something was weighing on Yusuke even more than Shaun himself. While her trainer usually had no trouble getting to sleep despite his near-constant nightmares, sometimes she let slip a harmless yawn to get his friend to likewise go the eff to sleep. Her priority would always be her trainer, but she made a snack out of Yusuke's nightmares whenever she could, to give the older boy a reprieve and to vary her own palate from the constant diet of rain and gunfire.)
Their semi-antagonistic relationship with the security guard outside the lighthouse was another of those things that kind of just happened. Initially, Shaun had been disposed to give the guard a wide berth (and if he hovered closer to Yusuke's elbow at the sight of the blue uniform it wasn't a conscious decision on Shaun's part), but somewhere in the series of harmless pranks the uniform had become less and less scary. NPC or not, he still wouldn't take a chance on approaching without Yusuke there, but the older boy's confidence was infectious, even if his mischief was as well.
Shaun took his cone and the two tiny 5P cones for his Snubbull and Eevee, passing them down to the former so that she could eat her own and hold the other where the latter could reach. Susie, like Puu, had declined the offer, although moreso because she disliked the sweetness of the ice cream.
"I guess my teachers weren't so bad. But they looked at me funny." His tone is pretty matter-of-fact, like it was the kind of thing he was used to. And even if it had been over a year since he had been to school, he still kind of was. He never dis liked his teachers, he just disliked they way that they all, without fail, treated him different. They looked at him like they felt sorry for him. It was bad enough in the two years after Jason's accident (even though he switched schools eventually, it had still been in the papers and "Mars" was a pretty uncommon last name), but it didn't even begin to compare to the looks he had gotten for the few days that he'd gone back to school after his ordeal was over.
Shaun hopped up onto the bench next to Yusuke, watching him. But when Yusuke mentioned the beach, suddenly his ice cream was far more interesting.
"I guess. I haven't been to a real beach like, ever. But when I was little, we went to the lake a couple times." He looked up at the older boy again almost nervously, a thought occurring to him so suddenly that it just came out without too much filtering - meaning, he sounded slightly worried when he said it, too.
"You really like going to the beach? Like...to swim and stuff?"
no subject
Whoops. Give him a minute here, Shaun - you kind of caught him mid-bite. Once Yusuke swallowed his mouthful of ice cream (and took a second to get over the cold, uncomfortable tingly sensation in his front teeth that followed shortly thereafter - he didn't know why the hell he always bit his ice cream when he knew that that was what was going to happen), he answered, "Uh, yeah. Why else would you go to the beach?"
Besides just to sit around and brood, which he did more than he'd like to admit. In fact, he didn't plan on admitting to it at all. He did, however, plan on giving Shaun a bit of a look, and does just that. It wasn't a funny look, like the ones Shaun described getting from his teachers (Yusuke wasn't sure what to think about that, really; Shaun seemed like a pretty well-behaved kid, unlike him, so he couldn't imagine why any teachers would look at him weird - maybe they were just assholes and Shaun was too nice to say so?), but it was certainly a puzzled one, because while he wasn't exactly what anyone would call the most perceptive guy on the planet, he could definitely sense how nervous Shaun was all of the sudden. Could hear it in his voice, too.
That said, though, he didn't want to embarrass him by pointing it out or making a big deal out of it. So he didn't. Instead, he stretched his legs out in front of him and draped his free arm over the back of the bench, and asked him, as casually and in as much of a relaxed manner as possible:
"Why? You not a fan, or something?"
Yusuke had noticed that Shaun never seemed interested in tagging along whenever he told him he was heading out to the shore. He just hadn't ever given it a second thought up until that point. After all, there were people out there who just didn't care for the beach.
I am trash I'M SORRY
"I guess not. Too much water," Shaun admitted as casually as he could, trying to force the nervousness out of his tone. "I liked going to the lake, but that was...a long time ago. We didn't go after Jason--" There wasn't much grief in his tone when he said his brother's name, and after all the stories about Jason griefing him from the treehouse or giving him wedgies or tormenting his bird, the name's at least somewhat familiar.
But the way he cut off his sentence meant that there was a story he hadn't told yet. One that he was reluctant to tell, if the speed at which he moved on was any indication.
"Anyway, I don't mind if you like going to the beach! I just...hope I wasn't hurting your feelings by not going with you."
YOU'RE FINE
Anyway. He wouldn't normally think this hard about Shaun's words, but something about the way he was acting was bugging him. He knew there was something wrong, and it seemed important to figure out what that something was.
Belatedly, Yusuke noticed that Gin had managed to get ice cream all over her face. The Lucario was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of him, shoveling her ice cream in like she hadn't eaten in weeks. He made a face at her. She was gonna make herself sick eating like that one of these days.
"Nah, don't worry about it," he told Shaun. He fished a napkin out of his pocket and leaned forward, shoving it under Gin's nose with a quirk of his brow. Gin took it sheepishly and wiped her snout. "It's not like I expect you to wanna do everything I wanna do. 'Sides, my feelings are pretty hard to hurt."
Gin crumpled the napkin up in her paw and held it out to him. He scowled at it. "Hey, I don't want it. Throw it in the trash."
Looking cross, Gin begrudgingly clambered to her feet and dragged herself slowly and resentfully over to the trashcan nearby. That sulky attitude would normally be enough to set Yusuke off, but fortunately for Gin, his mind was still on Shaun. He cast a sideways glance at the younger boy. He didn't want to force Shaun to talk about anything he didn't want to talk about, but the kid looked so withdrawn he couldn't help but say something.
"Hey," he said. He was careful to keep his tone light. "Everything all right? You seem kinda nervous."
no subject
Sure, sometimes he still got nervous that he'd gone too far. He was still afraid at some point he'd screw up and Yusuke would decide he didn't want to hang out with him anymore. Rejection hung over Shaun's shoulder like the new Death, now that he'd accepted that the latter couldn't touch him here. Everyone left him sooner or later.
The thought made him even more miserable. A drip of ice cream ran down over his hand before he stopped it with his tongue, cleaning the edges of the cone. He doesn't pay any attention to Yusuke's exchange with his Lucario, but he glances at Maddie and Jack to see Jack fastidiously cleaning his fur, having finished his cone. The last bit of Maddie's disappeared in her strong jaws, and she looked up at him with a smile and a cheerful Snub!
For a second, it seemed like Shaun didn't even register when Yusuke addressed him again.
"Too much water," he said again, almost too quiet to be heard. "...Promise you won't make fun of me?"
no subject
"What's up?"
Puu gave a concerned hum from where he was hunkered down next to Susie. Looked like she and Yusuke weren't the only ones who noticed there was something amiss.
no subject
There's no one here to make him talk about Jason or his dad if he doesn't want to...And there's no one he has to be afraid of hurting when he talks about Jason.
I just want things to go back to the way they were before.
It's too bad they can't. Even worse that it's taken him four years and losing his dad, too, to accept that. He's given up hope on his dad ever coming to Johto, just like he's given up on Norman ever coming back. Or anyone else who'd left.
"...You know how I don't like to go outside when it's raining?"
no subject
Yusuke barely even noticed Gin trundling back over; all of his focus was on Shaun. He'd never thought anything of Shaun's reluctance to go outside on rainy days. Plenty of people didn't like going outside on rainy days, just like plenty of people didn't like going to the beach. Had there been something else going on this entire time and Yusuke just hadn't noticed? The thought didn't settle well with him, but he decided to worry about it later. Right now, the important thing for him to do was to listen to what Shaun had to say.
no subject
The older boy's opinion means a lot to him. But he's kept some parts a secret for so long, he has to tell somebody. If he was Superman, what he's about to admit would be his kryptonite.
"I almost drowned. ...In the rain." he feels like he has to hurry to explain before Yusuke laughs. "There was a man, he locked me in a well in the rain. I didn't like...do something stupid like state at the sky with my mouth open or something."
no subject
A man tried to drown Shaun in a well. Yusuke turned the thought over and over in his head, his jaw tightening as a flood of hot anger suddenly welled up in his chest. Some bastard tried to drown Shaun in a well. Yusuke hated people who hurt kids to begin with, but the thought that someone would try to hurt Shaun - that they would try to kill him, even...
Needless to say, when Yusuke finally mustered up the ability to speak again, it was a wonder he didn't shout.
"When?" He asked, eerily quiet. His voice was tight with barely constrained rage. "How long ago?"
pffft and then I noticed a typo wow screw my hot life
I never shoulda said anything.
"...About two years ago," he admitted, because Yusuke's tone was one that required a straight answer. "I-I... I was in that well for four days... before my dad saved me." He'd talked about his dad before. His dad the architect, the man with broad shoulders perfect for piggyback rides and a dorky sense of humor. He'd never mentioned Ethan the Hero. At least, not more than in passing.
His shoulders slumped and he tried to become even smaller, as if that was possible. The crest on top of Susie's head had flattened slightly, as she watched the humans carefully (mostly Yusuke, in case she had to snatch Shaun away from his reaction), but other than a little worried half-chirp she knew that she had to let the humans handle it.
"...That's why I don't like to go near the water," he added quietly, almost too quiet to be heard. As if it wasn't obvious.
no subject
"Did they catch the guy?"
They better have, he thought fiercely. His expression was dark. Suddenly, he looked less like the easy-going, mischievous teenager Shaun had probably grown accustomed to, and more like a battle-hardened, steely-eyed warrior who had fought the worst kinds of monsters and murderers and sent them straight to their graves.
WOOHOO HEAVY RAIN SPOILERS
Yeah.
Did you know him?
No.
"...He was dressed as a police officer," Shaun all but whispered under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling his feet up onto the bench to hug his knees. Did he tell you his name?
He said his name was Officer Shelby. He told me to call him Scotty.
Thank you, Shaun. We'll let you rest now.
"I don't know," Shaun admitted quietly. "I told them everything... But I don't know if they caught him." He squeezed his arms around his knees even tighter. "Mom always changed the channel when the news came on..."
no subject
Of course.
Of course he was dressed as a police officer. Yusuke didn't know the exact circumstances that had led up to Shaun meeting the guy who'd stuck him in the well, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the guy probably pretended to be a cop so he could lure Shaun in without looking suspicious. Revulsion twisted in Yusuke's gut. And here he'd thought it wouldn't be possible for him to feel more disgusted than he already did.
"Son of a bitch," he snarled. He leaned forward and thrust what was left of his ice cream at Gin, gesturing for her to throw it in the trash. He'd lost his appetite.
As Gin trudged away to do as she was told to do (without arguing or putting up a fuss for once, because as much of a pain in the ass as she could be, she was smart and sensitive enough to know that now wasn't the time for that), Yusuke leaned his elbows on his knees and knitted his fingers together, hard enough to make the tendons in his forearms stand out. His mind was racing. He wanted to hit something. Everything made so much sense now, from Shaun's refusal to go to the beach with him to his reluctance to go outside when it rained, but to think that this had been the cause of it all--
It took a second for Yusuke to get a hold of himself enough to wrench his gaze away from his clenched hands and look at Shaun again. When he did, the sight hit him harder than a punch to the gut, and for a moment, Yusuke forgot all about how angry he was.
Shaun looked so small. Yusuke stared at him, feeling suddenly at a loss. He didn't know what to say to him. Didn't know if there was anything he could say. He wasn't gonna tell him he was sorry, because that was the most stupid and useless response in the book, but what else could he tell him? He wasn't good at using words to solve problems. He was used to solving them with his fists.
"Hey," he said after a moment, his voice soft. It wasn't exactly the most profound thing he's ever said in his life, but it was a start, at least. Better than just sitting there and watching Shaun look miserable.