route_1065 | 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 increase ~~or 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."

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It was rare for Yusuke to look horrified. Hell, he'd stared death right in the face and smiled before. But when he heard those words come out of Shaun's mouth ("There was a man, he locked me in a well in the rain"), his eyes popped wide open, the color drained out of his face, and for a long, long time, all he could do was sit there and stare at him, feeling as cold and as clammy as he would if he'd been doused in ice water.

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?"

Shaun hazarded a glance at Yusuke and flinched visibly at the look on his face. Now he'd done it, now Yusuke was going to not be able to look at him like he was just a normal kid. Now he was damaged, even broken.

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.

Yusuke noticed the way Shaun looked after that brief moment of eye contact - how he flinched and looked away, and how he curled into himself afterward, like he was trying to put as much space between the two of them as possible. But as angry as he was right now, he couldn't think about anything other than what Shaun had just told him. He barely even registered any of the activity going on around them; his focus had narrowed down to how badly his hands now itched with the urge to throttle the man who'd dared to lay his hands on Shaun.

"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.

That question surprised Shaun. It probably wasn't the last one he expected, but it certainly wasn't one he saw coming. The child specialists had interviewed him in the hospital, Did you see the face of the man who abducted you?
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..."

He was dressed as a police officer.

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.

There's an endless road to rediscover

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pffft and then I noticed a typo wow screw my hot life

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WOOHOO HEAVY RAIN SPOILERS

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