Work Text:
Blue almost misses the Zoom call. His hair sticks out to all sides when he peeks out from under the covers, the sleep of a restless night still clinging to his eyes. He doesn't remember when he got to bed. Must've been four or five. He doesn't know what time it is, but he couldn't have slept long. His computer, which has been on standby since last night, now emits an annoying beeping noise that alerts him to the call he's receiving.
He rubs his face with a sigh and gets up. The bedside next to him is empty. Red went to bed timely and probably got up at six or seven to go for his morning run. He usually gets back around two for lunch, so Blue isn't worried.
"Yeah, yeah, coming," he mutters to himself as he checks his hair in the small handmirror by the bedside and then slips into a pair of sweatpants and a purple sweater from the floor. "Rotom, who is it?"
His Rotom phone buzzes on the nightstand, before the digital voice announces, "It's your grandfather, Samuel Oak."
Blue groans. Of course it is.
"Fine. Connect him to the TV. Let's hear what the old coot has to say at this time of day."
He stands in front of the webcam in the middle or the room and waits for the image of his Gramps to be pulled up on the big screen. Gramps looks energized as usual when the call picks up, but Blue notices not for the first time the deep creases that age has etched into his face. Professor Oak is pushing seventy now, and slowly but surely, the years are starting to catch up with him.
"Blue? Are you there? Good morning, sleepyhead! I thought you'd never pick up."
The backhandedness of the greeting isn't lost on Blue, and he grimaces with his hands in his pockets back at his grandfather. "Yeah, yeah. Morning, Gramps. What's the four-one-one? I haven't even had coffee yet."
"Coffee can wait, young sport! I've got important business to discuss with you."
Blue sort of frowns. Usually, important business means Blue running some sort of errand for his grandfather, like he's still a ten year old with all the time in the world and not an adult himself who's working on a postdoc in Battle Studies. "What sort of business?" It's true that they're both experts in the broader field of Pokémon academia now, but Blue has made it a habit to stay away from research subjects his grandfather is focused on. Call it a healthy sense of self-preservation, because maybe he's picked up a thing or two from being with Red for so long.
"Well," Gramps says, steepling his fingers dramatically and looking at Blue with those sharp eyes that always make him feel like he's somehow doing something wrong just by standing there. "I've decided to retire."
Blue's mouth falls open. "Retire."
"Yes, Blue. Retirement occurs when a working adult decides that–"
"I know what retirement means, Gramps. Just. You?"
It seems outright inconceivable. Professor Oak is known as the bedrock of Pokémon research. The whole reason they’re all here is because he came up with the asinine idea of classifying all Pokémon in existence back in the seventies. He’s the eminent authority on all things to do with them. And he’s been passionately toiling away at his little research projects for as long as Blue can remember, never showing any signs of slowing down. The thought that he would one day stop has never, not once, occurred to Blue. He was sort of laboring under the assumption that Gramps would be at it until the ripe age of 120 and then, oh, I don’t know, blissfully fade away into the aether where he then continues his research from the great beyond. But retiring? Now?
His grandfather sighs and leans back in his large office chair. All at once, Blue registers just how old he really is. A weariness that he’s never noticed on his grandfather’s face suddenly breaks through, pent-up from years of all-nighters at the lab and a hefty caffeine and nicotine addiction. Gramps is aging.
.
Daisy's Espeon yawns and stretches on the small sofa when Blue closes the door of their small town house behind him. The walls are lined with pictures of him and his sister when they were younger, their parents, Gramps, Daisy's brief stint as a coordinator, her tiny Eevee, but increasingly family pictures featuring her husband and her two kids, her tiny Eevee all grown up and evolved.
Daisy enters the small living room with a tray of tea, and two face masks on it. Quarantine restrictions are still pretty tight and Blue doesn't plan on staying long anyways. "The kids," Daisy explains as she puts her mask to her face. Blue just nods and takes his own.
He can guess why she invited him, and he's been dreading this talk since Gramps called him that morning.
"So," he says, and kicks up his feet as he watches her pour the tea. "The old coot has decided to take the L."
"I wish you'd stop calling him that," Daisy says, eyebrows furrowing the only emotion visible on her face.
Blue shoots her down nonchalantly. "Not happening." He takes a cup of tea and briefly pulls his mask down to take a sip. It's boiling and he promptly burns his tongue.
"Right. Well. I asked to talk to you because I was wondering how you would like to handle the nursing going forward."
Blue frowns. "Nursing."
Daisy shoots him a look that is impressively unimpressed even with half her face covered. "He's not getting any younger, Blue. He's going to need aid eventually."
"And what makes him think he'll get any from me? Last I checked he didn't exactly graduate from the school of caring surrogate parents summa cum laude."
Daisy sighs. He can tell she was expecting this from him and that she's summoning up the last of her powers to combat it, but at the same time he's thinking: If you've been expecting this, why even bother?
"Blue. He's your grandfather."
Blue feigns surprise. "Really? Does he know?" At her glare, he continues, "Come on, Daise. This was entirely foreseeable. Did you really think I was gonna give half a flying hoot about this? You must have considered that."
"I did consider it, and I still gave you the benefit of the doubt."
"That sounds like a you-problem, to be perfectly honest."
He can see the gears working behind her eyes in realtime as he says it. People often make the mistake of assuming that just because Daisy is the more homely person of the Oak family, that she's not just as sharp as him or Gramps. But people assume wrong, and to his embitterment that often includes him.
"It's what Mom and Dad would have wanted."
The words land like a Thunder Punch straight to the gut and Blue actually has to put his tea cup down so he doesn't spill it. "Low blow, man."
Daisy leans back in her chair, visibly pleased with her delivery. Blue can tell she's smiling even through the mask. "I guess that settles it, then."
Blue sputters. "It settles nothing! I'm not gonna do it! To hell with–" He quickly lowers his voice because there are few things he fears more than Daisy's ire when she catches him swear around the kids. "To heck with what Mom and Dad would have wanted. When do I get decide to be my own person, huh? Everything I ever do is only for this goddamn– goshdarn family, and most of all it's only ever so Gramps will shut up and be happy for once. But he's never happy with anything that I do. So why, exactly, Daise, do you think that I should bother? Why now, of all times?"
Because maybe Blue actually enjoys seeing his Gramps get what’s coming to him for once. Maybe he takes some sick pleasure in watching as Gramps realizes that he can’t constantly demand things from Blue and expect to have his feet kissed in return.
“If you can’t do it out of the kindness of your own heart, at least do it for me, Blue. With everything going on in the world, who knows how long he’ll still be around, and who knows what happens if he gets sick or…”
“You’re not obligated to him either, Daisy,” Blue says seriously. “He has the money. He could book himself a nice nursery home in Sinnoh and get off our backs about it.”
“That’s not what I want for him, though.” Daisy looks up at the pictures on the wall. “I don’t want him… shipped off to some home just so he’s out of sight, out of mind. He’s the last I have left of Mom and Dad, and I want to spend whatever time we have left with him together.”
Blue sighs and sinks back in his chair. “You’re entirely too forgiving, Daise. You know that he treated you like sh– like crud, too, right? You’re allowed to be mad, too.”
Daisy frowns at him. She’s quiet for a long moment, in which she lowers her mask to blow her tea and take her sip. When she’s put the mask back on, she says, “What makes you think I’m not mad? I’m perfectly aware he wasn’t a great caretaker. After all, it was mostly me who raised you. But I’m an adult and I can be mature about this. I can choose to forgive. And to be quite frank, I wish you could do the same. He might die any day, Blue.”
“Well, for all I care he can get on with it already.”
“You don’t mean that,” says Daisy, real hurt in her voice.
Blue sighs and sinks back in on himself. “No. I don’t. Sorry.” He scratches the back of his neck. “All I mean is. You deserve a life, too. Y’know. Get out of there, for once.”
Daisy sighs, almost pitying. “Blue. This is my life. For better or for worse, this is what I’ve always known. And I can’t just topple it all over on some selfish whim.”
“Why not? It seems so unfair–”
“It is unfair. But if it’s between my family and chasing individualistic dreams, I’ll choose my family any day.” She shakes her head lightly. “I don’t mean to sound virtuous or anything. Just. I do this for them. I did it for you, too. Can you at least appreciate that?”
“I do,” Blue mutters. He starts fidgeting with his fingers. The sense of guilt and dread is descending upon him again, and he doesn’t know what to say. “But it… it hurts to not have a choice at all.”
.
Red is back by the time Blue gets home. Because of the strict regulations still in place, Red probably spent the entire morning in the forest or the mountains, watching wild Pokémon. Not that he'd have done anything differently if people were actually allowed to gather.
Blue sighs and flings himself onto the sofa of their small apartment as soon as his scarf is hung up by the door. Somehow he's already tired, and it's only half past two. It could be the lack of sleep from last night, but two big family conversations in the span of a few hours have drained him equally.
Red looks up from the book he's reading. Pikachu is perched in his lap, taking her afternoon nappies, and her ear twitches occasionally in her sleep. When Red sees the way Blue is dramatically draping his hand across his forehead, he dog-ears the book and puts it down. How did it go?
Blue shrugs listlessly and lets his head fall backward to stare up at the ceiling. The white of their small apartment is slowly eating at him after a few months of being stuck at home, and it takes him a moment to find it in him to speak. "Daisy thinks I'm being a total ass. And like. I kinda am. But also, I do have a point, right?"
Blue turns and finds Red nodding vehemently. It's not a secret that Red also feels a certain type of way about how Gramps treated Blue growing up, and also about how he treated Red: The prodigious child sent to do everything that Blue never could. Neither of them have a great relationship with Gramps these days, it seems.
"Right. So now it's like– Do I really want to give my annoying grandfather the time of day? Just because he might die in a few years?" The words feel cruel as he says them, but he knows that Red gets it. Red doesn't have a lot of family left, either, and even though his relationship with his mother has mostly healed since his grand disappearing act when they were teens, Blue knows that there's still some lingering tension that comes out when no one's looking.
"I don't know, babe." He lets his head fall against Red's shoulder, jolting Pikachu from her sleep. She makes an indignant chirp and hops off the sofa to the small pet bed in the corner of the room, where Blue's Sylveon is dozing. Blue remembers that he still has to buy Poké kibble.
It all feels so absurd. It feels like so much is being asked of Blue, and after he spent so many years trying to establish himself as his own person away from the shadow of his grandfather, life still finds a way to make him feel guilty for standing up for himself.
Red pats him lightly on the hair and rubs soothing circles into the side of Blue's thigh with his thumb. They sit like this for a while, Blue silently moping, until Red nudges him.
Blue looks up and finds Red's eyebrows meaningfully raised, the dark eyes asking the question Blue knows he's been avoiding.
Have you told your grandfather how you feel?
.
Gramps is sitting in his office chair when Blue arrives. Funny, Blue thinks, with a light shake of the head. Somehow after the announcement that he’d retire, Blue already expected him to have – oh, what? Thrown the old lab coat away and put on a floral shirt and dress shorts for his imminent trip to Alola? No. There’s no separating Professor Oak from his work that easily.
“Blue! There you are! Come in, sit.”
Blue feels the rubber bands of his mask tug uncomfortably at the back of his ear. He becomes strangely aware of it covering his face, like his breath is now a deadly poison that could kill Gramps if he breathed it in.
Gramps, for his part, has completely foregone the mask, which makes Blue unreasonably angry. Always the same old spiel with him. Do as I say, not as I do; preach virtue onto others so they may be better than you. Suddenly, Gramps’ life feels incredibly fragile, and Blue is angry that he would throw it on the line so easily.
Not that Gramps was ever any different. Blue looks at the cigarette pack next to the paperwork. At least people at this lab started smoking outside after the nineties.
“So, have you made up your mind about our discussion this morning?”
Blue glares at his grandpa, hands cramping on the armrests of his chair. “I have.” He stares at all those diplomas on the wall behind Gramps, looming down at him. When he was younger he always felt they were whispering to him, taunting him that he wasn’t doing enough with his life, saying that his grandfather was someone who could only be talked back to if Blue had at least as many diplomas hanging on his own wall. Now, instead, it seems like each of them signifies the chasm between Professor Oak’s brilliance and his lack of parenting. How could one man be so smart, so diligent, yet proceed to neglect his own grandchildren so miserably?
Blue chooses his next words very carefully.
“I thought for a while about what to say to you. I talked to Daisy and Red.”
Gramps nods, satisfied. “Good. I’m sure Daisy will have convinced you that–”
“I was actually going to tell you no.”
Blue lets the words hang in the air, satisfied with the cruel effect they are having on Gramps’ face. He opens and closes his mouth several times, making him look like a Magikarp desperate in the dry air.
This is different, too. It’s almost too easy, these days. Gramps used to be so feisty. If this were ten years ago, they’d already be in a shouting match. Blue faintly remembers Agatha saying years ago that Gramps had gotten soft, and now Blue is mortified to realize he agrees.
“Well,” Gramps says, folding his trembling hands together on the table, like he’s in prayer. “I’m sure you have your reasons. Of course, I can’t ask of you that you reconsider.”
“That’s right,” Blue sternly says. “You can’t.” He’s not falling for the woe-is-me bullshit again. Too many times, Gramps has made an absolute fool of Blue. Think of your poor grandfather! Well, when does he get to think about himself?
He’s not ready for what Gramps says next.
“I, well–” He clears his throat. “I apologize if I’ve caused you… pain in the past. I hope you can see that it was not my intention to leave you and your sister struggling the way I did. I don’t have anything to offer you, now in my advanced age. I’m simply an old man dependent on his next of kin. I can only ask of you to be there, and if you refuse, that is your prerogative.”
Blue feels his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. He feels awful. The urge to give in, to just say yes, grows unbearable. His fingers itch, and his biceps tense as he grips the armrests. “I’m, ah. I’m glad you said sorry? It’s just. You know.”
Gramps smiles sadly, and nods. “Too little too late, as they say. I understand that.” It feels meaningless, now. This isn’t the intimidating Professor Oak whom Blue wanted to forgive him. This is not the man who haunted his nightmares and made him tense every waking hour with the desire to just prove himself, to just be enough to be loved. The old man sitting in front of him is a shadow, a hollow shell, of what was once there.
“You know,” Blue says, swallowing hard. “I realized something a few years ago. It was right after my PhD, and you shook my hand after I got my diploma, at the ceremony.”
Gramps says nothing. He stares at Blue with bright eyes and nods for him to continue.
Blue takes a shaky breath. “I realized that me outperforming you would neither make you happy, nor would it ever bring my childhood back. I deserved better, and you could never give me that. And you never will. And it’s not–”
Blue swallows again.
“It’s not even that I particularly want you to. I know you can’t. I’ve made peace with that. I just.”
His hand goes to his mouth involuntarily.
His cheeks and his eyes burn hot.
“I just wish things could have been different.”
He jumps out of the chair and flees the lab before Gramps can say anything else. He jogs across Pallet Town, the empty streets, until he collapses on a bench near the shore and breaks down crying.
.
“I saw you run past our house.”
Blue looks up. Without him noticing, Red’s mother has joined him on the bench.
The brown of her hair is slowly fading into grey at the roots. Blue notes that she’s not wearing a mask, sitting far enough apart for it to not matter. It’s strangely nice seeing her face, he thinks.
“Oh. Hah.” He fidgets awkwardly with his hands. “I was just looking for a quiet spot to…”
Red’s mom nods patiently. “You talked to your grandfather? Daisy phoned me earlier,” she explains. A chilly wind blows along the shoreline and tousles her hair.
“Yeah, ah. We… um, there certainly was talking.” He laughs nervously, watching from the corner of his eye for her reaction. Blue and Red’s mother have a strange relationship. When Red went missing all those years ago, it fell to him to drop by bi-weekly and have these talks with her, because he was Red’s closest friend. At that time, the prospect had appeared monstrous to him. How could he be Red’s closest friend if they despised each other? Only over the years did he learn that the adults in their life probably saw their complicated relationship more clearly than he and Red did at the time. But this was in their youth. Now, Blue’s an adult, and Red’s mother is sitting across from him like an old friend, and he doesn’t really know how to deal with that.
“I understand how it’s complicated for you, Blue,” she says not unkindly. “You just want to be forgiven, that’s why you can’t forgive him. You were just a child – how were you ever supposed to be all those things he expected of you? Samuel Oak is a great man but he was never a great parent. Even when your father was alive, your grandfather always placed these unreasonable expectations on him.”
“Right,” Blue says with a slow nod. He forgets that she and her late husband knew his parents, that Pallet Town has a whole complicated history of complicated family dynamics that predates him and Red and even Daisy. “Well, whatever forgiveness I could have wanted, I got it. It’s just not… the same.”
“Of course it’s not. Because you’re grown up now, and he is old. Things can never be the same.”
Blue sighs and lets his head hang low. “Yeah, I guess so. So what… now? Do I just say no? I feel like shit every time I think of him now. It feels like I’m letting Daisy down. But if I say yes, am I not just doing exactly what I always used to do, trying to please him without getting anything in return?”
Red’s mother hums quietly. She bends down and plucks a bunch of white autumn flowers which are growing around the bench. She begins braiding them, until she is holding a small ring of blossoms. As she does so, she says, “You are justifiably angry at your grandfather, there is no denying that. But for as long as you hold onto that, your relationship can never progress in one direction or the other. The question then becomes: how much of that anger is really serving you? Can you let go of some of it, simply because it would make your life easier? I’m not asking you to compromise yourself, Blue. I am asking you whether you can find forgiveness for yourself so you’re not constantly chasing it from him.”
Blue frowns and lets the words run through his mind. In every syllable is an underlying pain, springing from what it must have felt like to be Red’s mother, wondering for so long whether your son abandoned you through your own wrongdoing. Blue realizes she is speaking from experience.
He lets out a soft exhale.
“I do want to forgive myself. I didn’t deserve to be treated the way I did, and I’m good enough the way I am. I deserve to be loved, and I–” He swallows quickly before tears can well up again. “I am loved. By my sister, your son.”
Red’s mother nods encouragingly. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m… going to tell Gramps that. I’m going to tell him that I’m willing to help out where I can, as long as it doesn’t mean making myself the fool for him. He needs to learn to respect that if he wants me around. And besides,” Blue says, feeling the corners of his mouth pull into a grin. “Knowing him, he’s just going to keep going anyways. What does retirement even look like for him anyways? He’s just gonna write twenty books and a senryū collection.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Red’s mother gets up, holding the finished flower crown between her fingers. “There is no one correct answer, I think. You’re an adult. Give as much as you can, without diminishing yourself.” She begins walking towards town. Just on the cusp, she turns around once more. “Please give my son my regards. And tell him to phone home every once in a while. It would mean a lot to me.”