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Ingo is the love of Emmet’s life.
Which is not at all weird, thank you very much! At least, he doesn’t think it is—he knows other people probably think so, but really, Emmet doesn’t care about them. If anything, he feels bad for them: most people have to go out in the world and search for the thing that matters most to them, for the love that makes their life make sense. Some of them never find it.
Emmet never had to go looking. Ingo was always right there. Of course he was—they’re twins! That seems to be the part that people get weirded out about. But he doesn’t see what’s wrong about attaching the word love to what he feels towards his brother, he never has. After all, there’s lots of different types of love in the world, all of them equally important and powerful. A parent gazes at their newborn baby, an owner nuzzles their childhood pet, a lover embraces their partner, a human looks in the mirror and is satisfied with the person that they see looking back at them: all of these are forms of love. Any of them can be important enough to be the love of a lifetime. When it comes down to it, every story ever told is, at its heart, a story about love—whether it’s an overflowing cup or the painful lack thereof.
Emmet has never lacked for love—never, that is, until the one day when he suddenly did. All it took was him looking away for a second, distracted. He’d all but blinked, and when he’d turned back again, his brother wasn’t there.
Ingo was just… gone.
That was five years ago. A lot has happened in that time. Emmet lost himself for a significant chunk of it, dabbled in denial and guilt and blame and hopelessness, all in equal measure. But he’d pulled through. Eventually, he’d found that he was, in fact, able to continue on his own. He’s in a much better place these days. Getting there wasn’t quite as simple as saying ‘better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’, not even close. Emmet likes winning more than anything else! He doesn’t like to admit when he’s lost.
But now, finally, he has accepted that he lost Ingo. His loved one is gone. The case was declared cold a long time ago; people don’t just reappear out of the ether after years and years without any clues. At a certain point, hope becomes delusion. And so Emmet mustered the strength to finally let go of the last of his.
But he will never, ever, ever refer to his love as lost. Because it isn’t. If that love was lost, then Emmet would be lost, too; Emmet is still here, so the love perseveres. His feelings didn’t go anywhere, never stopped—only got stronger, if anything. It’s the reason he’s not given up life entirely, the thought that makes him get out of bed in the morning: if Ingo could see him now, could see how he keeps at it, stubbornly refusing to fall apart even in his absence, he would be so proud of his younger brother. Emmet knows he would. He knows.
So he keeps going. Every day, it’s exactly the same: he wakes up, he does his best at work, he takes care of their pokemon, he takes care of himself, and he continues to love his brother with all his heart. That last action is achieved through the completion of all the actions that precede it. He loves his brother; his brother, wherever he wound up, whatever happened, surely still loves him. He would not want Emmet to fall into disrepair. And to honor that, he does everything in his power to keep himself on track.
His life is lonelier, yes. But it’s okay.
A one-car train can operate just as efficiently as a two-car train.
Ingo returns in much the same way as he departed. One second, he is gone. The next, he isn’t.
Emmet is, once again, distracted when it happens. He is thinking about how Chandelure could use a good polish, about how the singles line has been running impressively smoothly lately, about how he hasn’t gone to the doctor in awhile, and how maybe he should set some time aside to do that. His brother would tell him he’s been working too hard. Maybe he should even schedule himself a small vacation? Yes, that sounds nice, he should do that. Regular maintenance is the key to achieving peak performance!
And then, right as he was about to go on break, one of the depot agents hurriedly pulls him aside and shoves a phone into his hand. The voice on the other line changes everything with three short sentences:
They found him.
They found Ingo.
He’s alive.
His brother is on the other side of the world. There is something about that that makes so much sense. If he were anywhere closer nearby, Emmet would have tracked him down much sooner. Even then, despite being somehow transported to the furthest possible point on the map, they are still going to be reunited at last. Of course. This was inevitable. There’s no distance great enough to keep them separated forever, not so long as either of them are breathing.
But there was more to Ingo’s disappearance than that, the Interpol agent explains. Something very strange happened. The agency itself barely understands the mechanics of it, but they suspect that Ingo was disconnected from him not just by space, but by time as well. Emmet doesn’t quite understand how that can be possible, but… that makes an odd sort of sense, too. No wonder Ingo couldn’t get back to him! There was an impassable barrier in his way. If he could have returned, he’d have done so right away, by any means possible. Again, Emmet thinks, they have managed to overcome even this significant logistical issue. He found his way back, eventually. Of course he did. Of course!
There’s one more thing, the voice on the phone warns.
Ingo has amnesia. He doesn’t remember much: not where he originally came from, who he used to be before he got lost, or even how he got lost in the first place. It took them some time to positively identify him. From there, they found Emmet listed as his emergency contact.
They informed Ingo that his brother was coming to get him. Ingo then informed them that he did not know that he had a brother.
This is the part that does not make sense. Emmet tries—he spends the entire 14 hour plane ride thinking of little else—but he gets no closer to wrapping his mind around it. How could his brother not know him… what does that even mean?
Something horrible occurs to Emmet: he has no idea what is waiting for him, on the other end of this flight. He cannot imagine Ingo looking at him without recognition in his eyes, has no idea what that expression would even look like on his brother’s face. Not when it’s aimed at him.
Even deeper than that fear, lies something darker, something worse.
Emmet is scared that he won’t be able to recognize him, either.
This turns out to be a stupid fear.
His brother looks different—so, so incredibly different. But his brother is his brother, and so Emmet recognizes him immediately. He’s become a one-car train, just like Emmet has, but that’s alright. More than alright—Emmet is thankful. He made it home alive, all on his own, in spite of all the forces working to keep them apart.
Emmet loves him for that. He’d love him the same amount even if he hadn’t come back. He’s so happy he did, in the end, though. So happy it doesn’t hurt when Ingo looks over at him and all that is present on his face is confusion. Emmet is so happy, he can’t speak.
It does hurt, though, when Emmet approaches too quickly towards where Ingo is sitting, propped up in a hospital bed, and his brother flinches. He knows that he doesn’t like being touched sometimes—really, it's almost always been Emmet initiating any type of physical affection. But he’s never moved away from him like that before. He only ever regretfully tells him, “I’m sorry Emmet, not now. Maybe later. Okay?”
To be pushed away stings. But… that’s alright. He can wait. He’s waited a long time. He can wait some more. For Ingo’s sake.
What hurts much worse is when Ingo blinks and narrows his eyes and asks, voice rough and hoarse, “You’re… Emmet?”
It hurts because his brother says it all wrong. He stumbles over it, like the word is unfamiliar and new in his mouth. He knows who he is, but he doesn’t know him. He tried to prepare himself for this, but experiencing it in real time burns. It’s jarring, in the worst possible way—like walking down a flight of stairs, and thinking that there’s one more step than there is in reality, and stumbling to the ground. Emmet’s been on his own for a long time now, has grown used to being uncoupled from his other car, has walked up these stairs a million times. He should be able to do it blindfolded.
But still. He trips.
It’s okay though. Ingo catches him. After a tense moment, which Emmet spends paralyzed, unable to move… his brother’s eyes widen. It’s barely there, but there it is, nonetheless—the tiniest spark of recognition. “That’s right,” Ingo croaks, himself shocked. “I… I remembered you!”
Ingo remembers him.
Thank God, Emmet thinks to himself, after they’ve talked for about an hour, exhausting Ingo in the process. He’s passed out in his bed, and Emmet himself has collapsed back in the extremely uncomfortable waiting chair in the hospital room. Thank God Ingo still remembers him, he thinks, over and over and over, now that he has space to unpack everything, alone again in the quiet room. Emmet doesn’t think he could have handled it, if his brother had managed to forget him, forget half of himself. It might have killed him.
But he didn’t forget. He held onto his memory—of him, of Emmet—above everything else.
However, his brother has indeed still forgotten a lot. He doesn’t even seem to realize it when he does manage to remember certain other things. He’d been surprised when Emmet finally found his words—which were, of course, in Galarian. His brother had been surprised again when he’d pointed out that Ingo had spoken to him automatically in Galarian as well. Apparently, he picked up a second language during his time away from home, and then forgot that he even knew an original language in the first place.
It’s bizarre. But it’s okay. That just proves it: the memories aren’t gone, they’re simply buried. Emmet doesn’t mind if it takes time to dig them back up. Like he said, he can wait. They’re starting from a solid foundation, as well; the handful of things Ingo can readily recall spans all the most important topics. He remembers some of his pokemon. He remembers battling. He remembers the concept of a train, if not the actual word itself, enough for Emmet to easily identify what he’s trying to describe. When he pulls up a picture of one on his phone and presents it to him, Ingo cradles it in his hand and just stares at it, wide-eyed, for the longest time.
But, most importantly, he remembers Emmet. Ingo tells him that he remembered that he always wore white, he remembered his smile, he remembered that he likes to win more than anything else. Emmet’s satisfied. That pretty much covers all the basics.
Well, that, and the fact that he loves Ingo. But he doesn’t have to say it out loud for him to trust that Ingo’s figured that one out. Emmet’s always been more into showing rather than telling, anyways.
For his part, Ingo doesn’t say it either, probably because the notion still confuses him. But Emmet can see it anyways, has always known where to look to find it: he knows that Ingo still loves him, too.
Ingo remembers him.
But Ingo doesn't remember everything about him.
He doesn't remember that he's left handed, and he doesn't remember that he's lactose intolerant. When Emmet makes a sly comment about possibly smuggling Joltiks into the hospital, Ingo stares back at him blankly, not having understood the joke. Oh well; these are minor details, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't really bother Emmet at all.
How could it, when Ingo was able to remember what matters, which is that Emmet loves him?
But, he slowly realizes, it’s slightly more complicated than that. Because Ingo doesn't remember how much Emmet loves him.
As they spend the next few days talking, Emmet dedicates a solid chunk of an afternoon explaining their job to him. He tells him about all their duties, about their subordinates, about how much pride they take in their work, about how the subway they oversee is one of the biggest attractions in Unova. Ingo is a big deal, is Emmet's intended point. He is verrrrrry important.
"That sounds important," Ingo agrees, processing, "And you've been away for the past three days... Will you need to return to your duty soon?"
Ah. No. He's gotten completely the wrong idea. "I am not going anywhere until the doctors say you can come with me," Emmet responds, instantly. Which shouldn’t be too much longer; Ingo’s already kicked his fever and his cough’s steadily subsiding. He still shivers violently every now and then, no matter how many blankets they pile on him—some kind of after-effect of acute hypothermia, apparently—but other than that, he’s mending quickly. Even if he wasn’t, Emmet would stay. It doesn’t matter how long it takes.
Ingo looks at him, surprised. "Are... you sure that's okay?" He frowns. "They said it might still be another week."
He's not getting it.
This is a slightly larger concern to Emmet. The amount he cares for his brother is… immense. Ingo is important to him. The most important thing! It makes him sad, thinking about his brother going even a minute without understanding just how loved he is, just how desperately he was missed. Emmet needs him to fully understand the scope of the situation.
"You are here." He's spent a very long time riding the rails alone, but only because he had to. Not because he wanted to. He would like to avoid ever doing so again, if possible. Emmet is going to do everything in his power to ensure that that is the case. "So there is no reason why I should be anywhere else." He pauses, wondering if that explanation fully conveys what he'd trying to say, and finds it lacking. Emmet is not especially good with words. "Nothing is fun without you," he adds.
Ingo turns away, suddenly, like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do with that. "I see," he says, eventually. "I'm sorry."
He still doesn't understand: there is nothing to apologize for. He's done being sad about his brother's disappearance, he's ready to be happy about his return instead. He doesn't want Ingo to feel bad about how much he missed him, about how much he loves him. It's not a bad thing! Emmet loves loving him!
But he knows his brother, and so he knows what it looks like when he is overwhelmed: right now, Ingo is completely out of his depth. The past few days have already been confusing enough. Emmet does not want to make things worse for him. He'd never want that.
So the two of them sit there, and politely look away from each other, and steep in an awkward silence instead.
Emmet waits, and then he waits some more, but the promised day arrives soon enough. Finally, he and Ingo get to go back home.
His brother was nervous the entire trip back, but that energy dissipates the moment he unlocks the door to their apartment. He walks in, and looks around, and finds things he recognizes, and then he looks at Emmet, and he smiles.
Ingo smiles now.
It took his breath away, the first time Emmet saw it. Ingo would practice in the mirror all the time as a kid, trying and trying and trying and failing to pull off a convincing grin. He remembers his brother, frustrated and annoyed, asking him how he managed to do it so easily. He didn't really know what to say. For him, it was always easy to smile, provided he had a reason to. And Emmet always had Ingo around, so that was all the reason he needed, right there.
Ingo wasn't around at all, for a time. So smiling became much harder. And home stopped feeling like home.
Now, home feels exactly the way it should. He lets his brother take his time, walking from room to room, rediscovering everything, introducing himself to their pokemon again one-by-one.
As he does this, Ingo keeps smiling. And he keeps directing that smile primarily at him. Emmet loves it.
But...
But each time he does so, he’s smiling at him from the other side of the room.
By the time he is done making the rounds, Ingo is practically asleep on his feet. No surprise there—it was a long trip home, and his brother is still dealing with some lingering fatigue, despite his discharge from the hospital. It'll be good for him to be able to rest in his own bed again. Emmet suggests they turn in for the night.
They shuffle off to their respective rooms, and Emmet finds that he can't go to bed yet. He needs to do something, to say something. He trusts that his brother already knows what he’s about to tell him, but he finds that has to do it anyway. If he doesn’t express it somehow, he’ll explode. "Ingo," he says, as his brother places a hand on his door knob, half-sleepwalking. "I love you."
He realizes his mistake almost instantly. They just spent an entire night refamiliarizing Ingo with everything—and then Emmet goes and throws him a curveball. Because what he just did is actually decidedly out of character for him. Emmet loves his brother, obviously, and has always found ways to convey that sentiment. But… he never really got in the habit of saying it outright. Again: words aren't his thing. They're Ingo's. But at the moment, words seem like the most efficient, safest way to get it out there—he's not sure what Ingo is or isn't prepared for, not while he's still adjusting. What he really wants to do—hug his brother tightly from behind—would almost certainly be an unwelcome gesture. Actually, that sort of thing would make Ingo fuss at him even when he wasn’t missing his memories. It’s fun teasing him. He missed doing it. But now is probably not the best time to be playing the role of bratty little brother.
So... words! Emmet can use words.
Except his words make Ingo freeze in place. When he turns around to look at Emmet, he's shocked. Makes sense. He doesn't remember this, because he can’t remember this, because Emmet never really used to do this, before.
And then his brother blinks at him, and cautiously opens his mouth to respond, and Emmet realizes that he absolutely cannot handle what comes next. He cannot hear his brother tell him "I love you, too" like he's not entirely sure how to say it, like he's confused about it, like he’s just being forced to parrot it back or risk coming off as rude. He can't. He can’t.
So, he doesn't. "That's all," Emmet interrupts, before his brother can get a single word out. "Goodnight," he adds, his bedroom door clicking shut behind him.
The following week, Emmet takes him to Gear Station.
Ingo gets worked up the second he lays eyes on the building. Inside, his head swivels around on a pivot, trying to take in all the sights and sounds at once. Emmet wondered at first if maybe they should have waited for a less busy day to visit, but as Ingo's excitement builds, he finds himself glad they decided to go for it. He loves seeing his brother so animated.
They're heading towards the tourist line that loops around the tracks—no battles, just a leisure ride—when Emmet finds himself nearly having to chase after him. It's an interesting reversal of the usual roles: Emmet has always been the one racing ahead, with Ingo bringing up the rear, calling after him to slow down, wait for him, remember that they're not supposed to run indoors.
It’s ironic, given that Ingo looks so much older now… but it almost feels as if the two of them are kids again. Like they’re years in the past, back when they were young and carefree and had never spent even a second apart. Back when Ingo wasn't quite as good at bottling up his enthusiasm as he is now, when he was less concerned with being The Responsible One, when all they cared about was each other, and neither of them had yet felt the strain of years spent getting by on their own.
Eventually, as all rowdy children let loose in the station inevitably do, Ingo trips. The doors to their train open, and he steps forward too quickly, winds up losing his footing in the rift between the platform and the car. Silly. So much for being responsible! There's only a billion signs all over the place instructing passengers to mind the gap.
It’s okay, though. Emmet catches him. He’s able to swoop in next to him and slide a steadying hand into his, right before he tips back too far. “Be careful,” Emmet reminds, righting him. “Watch your step.” Ingo blinks owlishly as he’s guided seamlessly onto the train, hand held securely all the while. “Safety first!”
“Awww,” coos an older passenger a few seats down, loudly enough for him to plainly hear. “That’s adorable.” Emmet smiles politely in acknowledgement of the compliment, although he really wishes she wouldn’t. They should update the usual announcement on the PA system: Attention passengers! Please keep your hands, feet, luggage, and unnecessary comments to yourself while the train is in motion!
“How nice,” stage-whispers her companion. “Not everyday you see that kind of thing.” Why are they so loud? “I mean, I’m close with my siblings, but not that close.”
Emmet ignores them. They don’t mean anything by it. And what does he care about what a couple of nosy passers-by think, anyway? His attention today is reserved solely for his brother.
Who continues to blink repeatedly, as if stuck in a daze. He’s staring down at where Emmet’s hand is still wrapped around his, like he doesn’t quite understand what’s going on there. Actually, now that he thinks about it, is this the first time that he’s touched Ingo since he came back? It is, isn’t it?
Suddenly, Emmet feels weird.
He slips his hand away from Ingo’s, and it's like the spell is broken. His brother snaps out of it, hurriedly turning to look out the window of the train instead. He asks a basic question about the rail system, which starts Emmet off on a branching explanation on how the tunnels are mapped out, and all the maintenance required for upkeep, and scheduling guidelines, and so on and so forth. The annoying passengers get off at the next stop, and Emmet quickly puts that whole sour interaction out of his mind.
Well. He tries to, anyway.
Ingo… Ingo is the love of Emmet’s life. He is very, verrrrry important to him. So important. The most important thing in his life, the thing that everything else is organized around, the thing that makes everything else make sense.
Maybe, he thinks, for the first time in his life, maybe… that’s weird. Very weird, even. Tons and tons of people have siblings, but almost none of them seem to hold as much affection for each other as he does for his brother. They don’t make movies about the enduring nature of brotherhood, not the way they make movies about other types of relationships. Most people do not live with their siblings well into their 30s, with the unspoken understanding that they’re going to continue living that same way indefinitely. Emmet cannot think of a single time he has seen someone else love in quite the same way, with quite the same intensity, as he loves.
Actually, he asks himself, isn't that a bad sign?
He cannot come up with a decisive answer, one way or the other.
Time passes. They keep doing everything together, almost exactly like they used to. Ingo keeps remembering. Emmet keeps sinking deeper and deeper into unwanted thoughts.
Which is annoying. Because he should be happy! His brother is home, and he’s recovering quickly, and he’s safe and he’s healthy, and he smiles at Emmet every single day. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. More than that, even—so much more than Emmet could have possibly hoped for.
So something is seriously wrong with him, that he still wants more.
Even worse: what he wants is to be able to touch his brother.
Eugh. Just thinking that makes him feel icky. But it is, unfortunately, the truth. He wishes he could just reach out and grab hold of him the way he used to be able to: casually, naturally, without thinking twice about it. But he can’t. He’s too in his own head to feel okay about trying.
And, besides… Ingo clearly doesn’t want to be touched. Every time Emmet so much as brushes past him, he freezes up. It makes him feel horrible, whenever it happens. He thinks back on how touchy-feely they used to be, back before Ingo disappeared, and he wonders how much of that was his brother simply tolerating him. And Ingo, because he’s a good person and the perfect brother, is still willing to do exactly that, to tolerate him, despite missing a sizable chunk of his memories: he dutifully stays right where Emmet wants him, right by his side, without complaint. But there’s something wrong there, too. These days, he stands just a little further away than he used to. Only by a half-step, but still. Emmet can feel the distance.
He doesn’t like that he can feel the distance. Hadn’t he felt enough of that, when the two of them were separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years? And he had found a way to carry on, even in the face of that endless distance, but now Ingo’s right there, right within his sights, and Emmet’s suddenly falling apart again. It’s not fair, and it makes no sense. He just wants to be close to him, closer than they currently are, but he can’t get closer, he shouldn’t, because wanting to as much as he does is inappropriate, and strange, and abnormal, and weird, and-
“Emmet!”
He is snapped out of the spiral by a familiar voice down the street calling his name. Right, Elesa. He’s standing outside the station waiting for Elesa. He and Elesa are going to go get lunch, same as they do every Wednesday. Right, right. He’s present now. He’s fine, everything is fine. “I am Emmet,” he answers.
“Sorry I’m late,” she explains, as she walks up to him, “I got sidetracked at the gym and-” she looks around, searching for someone. “Wait. Where’s Ingo?”
“Home.”
“Home?” She looks concerned. “Everything alright? He feeling sick, or something?”
“No.” Emmet shrugs. “Just home.”
“Huh.” Elesa looks at him, surprised. “Well, okay.” She smirks. “You know, I kinda expected that you’d be glued to his side for next year or so at least. I’m surprised you managed to pry yourself away!”
She… is not helping. “Of course not,” Emmet says, definitely not letting her harmless teasing get under his skin. “I am not that clingy. It is fine to spend a day apart.” He was the one who suggested that Ingo hang back today in the first place. They’ve been spending some long days at the station getting him back up to speed, and even if he’s recovered from his ordeal he still shouldn’t overwork himself, and… and he probably appreciates a break from being around Emmet 24/7, even if he would never say so himself. Emmet understands. He doesn’t want Ingo to get fed up with him. “No big deal.”
“...Ooookay” Elesa is not fooled. She fixes him with a knowing look, crosses her arms, and demands: “Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Emmet mutters, which is technically true.
“Then what’s bothering you? And don’t try to tell me it’s nothing.” Agh. Of course she’s not going to let the subject drop. “You know I’m going to get it out of you sooner or later.”
This is not an idle threat. Elesa has been an invaluable friend over the past five years, always checking in on him, and goading him into talking about all the difficult, scary things on his mind, and refusing to let him slip through the cracks whenever he feels like he’s at the end of his rope. She knows very well what it looks like when Emmet is trying to lie his way out of a conversation. “Fine,” he sighs, knowing he’s already lost. He hates losing. But Elesa is a formidable opponent. “Then. Can I ask you something?”
“You know you always can.”
She’s right, once again. Emmet trusts her. He takes a deep breath, and then asks, quietly, meekly, “Do you think I love Ingo too much?”
Her face clearly indicates that she thinks his question is stupid. “No?” Her frown deepens. “Who the hell told you that?”
Emmet looks at his feet.
“ Oooh. I see,” she scolds, “you told yourself that!” Her hands are on her hips, a disappointed expression on her face; he’s really in for it now. “Emmet. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. You two are, like,” she waves her hands around for emphasis, “some kind of platonic ideal of brotherhood, or whatever. It’s not too much. I literally wish I had anything even close to the bond you guys have. I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t, deep down.”
“But,” Emmet whines. “You are-”
“Emmet,” she says, shmooshing his face with her hands to shut him up. She does this often, even though Emmet has told her he considers it cheating. “I know, you big dummy. I’m the one that basically declared myself you guys’ honorary little sister in the first place, remember?” Emmet tries to say something, but she squishes his cheeks—more cheating! Very underhanded on her part. “So, as your little sister, trust me when I say that you’re overthinking things. Okay?”
Emmet rubs the side of his face. Ow. She doesn’t have to be so rough. “But-”
“Things aren’t quite the same as they used to be,” she says, cutting him off. “That’s what this is all about, right?”
He doesn’t say anything. That is… a big part of the problem, yes.
Elesa looks at him sympathetically, now. “I figured. I mean, there really isn’t any way for someone to come home after four years away and not be at least a little different, but Ingo… he’s…” She sighs, moving to wrap an arm around his middle, resting her head against his shoulder. “I think you’re doing the best you can, Emmet. Both for you and for him. Give yourself a break, already.”
He bonks his head against hers. Now that he thinks about it, Elesa is even more tactile than he is. And he’s never once felt weird about her. Maybe he should cut himself a break. “We should be careful,” Emmet warns her. They are, after all, in a very public area. “The tabloids will make up another weird story.”
Elesa snorts out a laugh. A couple of years back, someone had snapped some blurry photo of the two of them hugging and passed it off to a gossip magazine, which proceeded to blow it up way out of proportion. Apparently, a simple hug is enough to drive people’s imagination wild. The rumors were, of course, wildly off base—they were not, are not, never have been, and never will be an “item”. Their relationship isn’t intimate in that way. It’s still intimate, of course, just… not like that! So weird, how strangers make assumptions.
Emmet has to admit, though, that the whole thing was pretty funny. One of the only truly funny moments in an otherwise very dark period of Emmet’s life. So maybe the assumptions aren’t all bad.
“Psh, let ‘em talk,” Elesa exclaims, pecking him on the temple. “Do I look like I care about what other people think?”
When Emmet comes home that night, after work, Ingo is sleeping on the couch.
Emmet has told him several times not to do this. He already has back issues! Falling asleep in weird spots will not make them any better! He nearly wakes Ingo up right then and there, but then stops himself.
His brother is sound asleep.
He has nightmares often, now. Emmet isn’t sure what they consist of. Ingo never talks about them, is clearly uncomfortably bringing any extra attention to the issue. But he can’t hide that it’s a problem: Emmet often hears him shuffle around the apartment at odd hours of the night or finds him awake much too early in the morning. And he always, always has this tired look in his eyes. It never goes away.
Before, he wouldn’t have thought twice about just flopping onto his bed and pestering him until he told him what was wrong. Hard to be scared of the monsters under the bed if there’s someone beside you. They used to do it all the time as kids.
Maybe that right there is the problem: they’re not kids. They’re adults. Emmet needs to grow up, already. At best, his attachment is childish. At worst, he’s a creep. Because that’s exactly what you call someone who stands around and stares longingly at their brother while they’re sleeping: a creep. It’s creepy, to look at your brother and think, oh, his body is so much different now, and he looks so much stronger now, and what would it feel like to touch him? It’s disturbing, and inappropriate, and weird—wanting to feel closer to someone who is already so incredibly close.
And, yes, he knows Elesa is right. Emmet shouldn’t care about what other people might think of him. And he doesn’t!
But… he cares about what Ingo thinks about him. More than anything. He doesn’t want to trouble his brother with his issues. And he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. He most certainly does not want anything sexual from him. He doesn’t want anything sexual from anyone at all! Even kissing has always been repulsive to him—saliva, tongues, bleugh. Gross. Other people seem to like it, so there surely must be something to it. But it is simply not Emmet’s cup of tea. Everything that he did want in terms of intimacy with another person he’d been able to get from Ingo in the past, without really crossing the bounds of what’s considered platonic behavior. So, in a way, he’d never worried about going too far. He’s never wanted anything like that from him, because he’s never wanted anything like that from anybody.
But maybe he should have worried about it. Because what if he was the type of person to want that kind of thing? Would he find himself looking at his brother for that, too? If he did have thoughts like that, would Ingo be able to tell, would he look at Emmet and see a degenerate? How do you know for sure what is okay to want and what makes you a bad person? Where is the line? Has he already crossed it? Would Ingo hate him if he did?
Most importantly: why is he interrogating himself with a million pointless hypothetical questions?
There is no such thing as a bad thought, his therapist had told him, back when Ingo was still lost, and it had become clear that he was never going to be found. Emmet was at his absolute lowest point, then, he remembers. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to keep his mind from wandering to places he didn’t want it to go. All day, everyday, there was a movie reel playing in his head featuring all the possible fates that could have possibly befallen his brother, each one worse than the last. It was horrible. It made him want to do things he shouldn’t. It felt like he was being held hostage by his own brain.
But a thought is just a thought, he’d learned, and there is no such thing as a bad thought. Only bad actions. It was okay that he felt angry, and scared, and hopeless all of the time. So long as he kept getting up and living the kind of life he knew his brother would want him to live. So long as he kept taking care of himself, then things would eventually improve.
Theoretically, it’s fine if he feels things he shouldn’t, things he wishes he didn’t feel. As long as you don’t try to suppress them, and you don’t try to encourage them, and you keep trying to do the right thing, it’s okay. You can learn to let the thoughts come, and let the thoughts go again. Everything passes. Nothing lasts forever.
You cannot control your brain. You cannot control your thoughts. You cannot control your feelings. But you can control your actions. You can choose to do the right thing. Even if your insides feel rotten, even if you’re lost, you can still strive to become the best possible version of yourself. And you are the only one who can make that decision; no one else can do it for you. You have to find it within yourself.
That is what it means to be a one-car train.
And becoming a one-car train was hard, but it wasn’t so bad, not once he got used to it. Emmet is pretty much a professional now. Ingo had to learn how to be one too, during his time away. He wouldn’t have survived till now if he hadn’t.
The thought does not make Emmet sad. Quite the contrary. As he looks away from where he’s lying, still sleeping peacefully on the couch, he thinks: he is proud to have him as an older brother.
Ingo wakes up about 30 minutes later. Emmet is sitting on the floor by his feet. Not too close, not too far. Just right.
Right?
“You’re home,” Ingo says, surprised. Emmet missed hearing him say that. “How was work?”
Lame. Boring. Ingo wasn’t there. “Slow,” Emmet answers. “Only three challengers made it all the way to me today.”
“Did any win?”
Emmet's smile widens. “One got close.”
His brother smiles too. “As expected. Good job.”
In the past, Emmet might have invaded Ingo’s personal space until his brother sighed at him fondly and ruffled his hair. In the present, all he gets is a smile.
And that’s okay! Emmet’s happy with either.
Ingo attempts to sit up, winces, and then flops back where he was laying. “I fell asleep on the couch,” he says, remorsefully.
“You fell asleep on the couch,” Emmet says, disapprovingly. “Do you remember what happens when you do that?”
“Yes, Emmet,” he says, sighing exasperatedly. There is very little difference between the sound of Ingo sighing fondly and Ingo sighing exasperatedly. The line separating the two is quite indistinct. “I believe I’m aware of where I made a mistake. No need to rub it in.” He’s silent for a moment, thinking over his options. “Would you help me up?”
Emmet doesn’t freak out over receiving a direct invitation to touch his brother, however slightly, because it’s not worth freaking out about. He’s fine without it; it’s really not that important. What’s important is that Ingo is here, right next to him, alive and well. Emmet can look at him, and talk with him, and feel secure in the fact that he’s home. So they didn’t go back to being a two-car train, oh well. They can be two one-car trains together! That’s nearly as good. It feels perfectly fine, no longer being attached at the hip.
Although it might feel better if Ingo didn’t obviously look away from him, uneasy, when Emmet helps pull him up into a sitting position. He doesn’t yank his hand back after, but he might as well have. He looks, to sum it up in a single word, tense.
Seriously, did he always dislike being touched that much? If he did… Emmet wished he had said something, back then. Hearing it would have hurt, yes, but… finding out like this hurts more.
“...Freezing,” Ingo mutters under his breath, then, as if to himself. When Emmet looks over, he finds that, sure enough, his brother is shivering.
“You’re cold,” he tells him. How he’s cold, Emmet has no idea: it’s a solid 75 degrees in their apartment. Which is almost too warm, in his opinion. But who cares about that? Not Emmet, that’s who. Ingo’s comfort is paramount. “You want me to get you a blanket?”
Ingo startles, apparently unaware that he’d spoken out loud. “Actually, ah, if you could-” He seems like he wants to ask for something else, but stops. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”
But Ingo is still shivering. He’s semi-huddled on his side of the couch, hunched over, running his hands up his arms like the physical contact will somehow help.
Oh. Wait.
Something clicks in Emmet’s brain.
“Ingo,” he asks, scooting a little closer, searching for any signs that he needs to back off. “Is it okay if I come over?”
His brother does not say “no”, like he half-expects him to. His brother does not even say something like “alright”, or “sure”, or “if that’s what you want”, any of which would have been predictable responses from him. Instead, what his brother says to him, a little helplessly, is “please.”
Emmet wants to yell “finally ”, to scramble over to him and wrap him up in his arms as fiercely and tightly as possible. But he doesn’t. He moves slowly, like he’s trying not to scare him off, and Ingo leans almost imperceptibly forward to meet him halfway. He acts like he has no idea what he’s doing, how this whole ‘hugging’ thing is supposed to work—but, well, Ingo’s always been pretty awkward. Emmet loves his brother, and that’s exactly why he’s the first to admit that he is a gigantic dork.
Stiff as he is, however, he doesn’t seem at all uncomfortable. Which is a relief, and not just for Emmet’s sake. The only thing worse than the feeling of someone pulling away from your touch is the feeling of being dragged into an unwanted embrace.
“You’re, ah…” Ingo murmurs, after a minute or so has passed and he’s managed to loosen up a smidge, drawing an unsure arm around Emmet as well. “You’re certain this isn’t too weird?”
“Yep!” Emmet is a hypocrite. Oh well. “Not weird at all.”
He apparently needed to hear that, judging by the sigh he exhales in response. “I was certain it would be. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted,” Ingo mutters, grip tightening. It’s surprising how much stronger he is now. Emmet doesn’t mind it. It feels nice. “It wasn’t like this before. I didn’t…” His brother pauses, embarrassed. “I didn’t know what I was missing. I didn’t know I could want this from someone. No, actually,” he says, correcting himself, “I didn’t want this. Not from anyone else. Just you.” A nervous chuckle: “Oh, that definitely sounds weird, when I say it like that...”
“Well,” Emmet admits, “Maybe it is a little weird.” And so what if it is? He can’t find it in him to care one way or the other, at the moment. “S’okay, though. I don’t mind.”
“Hmmm,” his brother hums. He can feel the vibration. “Alright. Only because you don’t mind.”
Emmet turns his head to look at him better. “When you said you didn’t know, before…” He doesn’t like the way Ingo still seems so unsure, even now. “You meant when you were in Hisui.” He doesn’t like the doubt he hears in his voice. He doesn’t like to think about Ingo going without. “You… were alone, out there. Right?”
Ingo doesn’t say anything. Which is explanation enough, paradoxically. His brother is very good with words. So, it’s telling, the times he finds himself unable to provide them.
He talks about Hisui, sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. There are three conclusions Emmet has drawn about that place, based on what his brother has told him:
- It was harsh.
- It was desolate.
- It was cold.
Emphasis on the final point. He seems to include that particular detail, that the climate was freezing year-round, anytime he says anything about his old home. At one point, Emmet had asked him, “Oh, then is that why you held onto the coat for so long?” It seemed like a reasonable explanation, to him. They designed the stupid things way, way too warm; they’re murder to wear in the summer seasons.
But Ingo had told him no. That it really had nothing to do with that.
Emmet begs to differ. He definitely held onto it for the sake of warmth. Maybe not that particular type of warmth, but, still…
Ingo seems to be cold all the time now. Every now and then, Emmet will look over and see him trying to suppress a shiver. At first, he thought it was just the lingering effects of the hypothermia he was hospitalized with, back when he was first found; they did discover him lying unconscious on the side of a mountain, after all. Ingo should consider himself lucky that he didn’t die there. Emmet, at least, considers himself lucky that Ingo didn’t die there. Hypothermia is pretty serious: once the chill sets in, things can go south very quickly. The doctors seemed surprised at how easily he’d bounced back from the resulting pneumonia. But even after Ingo received a clean bill of health, the cold seemed to somehow persist. Over the days and weeks and months that followed, he slowly noticed that his brother could never seem to get completely warmed up. Like the external frost had somehow become an internal one—planted itself somewhere deep in his veins, where even the combined warmth of all the jackets and blankets and sheets in their possession failed to reach.
Right now, curled up with him on the couch, his hand in his hair and his face against his neck, Emmet thinks he can finally feel it melting.
“It wasn’t as awful as you’re imagining,” Ingo tells him. “I wasn’t entirely alone. Not all the time.”
“But you were lonely.” Emmet was lonely too. “I know. I wasn’t alone, either.” So many people reached out, so many people did their best to be there for him. In a way, he was less alone than he’d ever been in his life. And that helped, but only so much. It was an issue of quantity over quality; none of them could replace what he lost. “I got used to it. I hated getting used to it. It was so hard, Ingo. But I did.” He really did. Somehow, someway, he’d figured out how to stand on his own.
He can see his brother looking at him, considering him, out of the corner of his eye. “I remember what you said, when we had just met,” he says, eventually. “You’d said it wasn’t any fun without me.” Emmet had. He didn’t expect to be understood, he knows his words are often lacking. Maybe he should have—he’d said it to Ingo, after all. Ingo knows him. Even when he doesn’t know him! “You were right, Emmet. It wasn’t any fun at all. It wasn’t unbearable, but… it also wasn’t fun. I don’t think I even understood what that word meant until…” His brother trails off, but he doesn’t sound sad. He sounds happy. “You know,” he announces, “I think I could use a break from being a one-car train.”
Emmet thinks he might pass out in joy. “You could have said something,” he chides, poking his brother mercilessly in the side. He’s not seriously reproaching him, but, honestly! They both could have avoided a lot of grief if he’d just spoken up earlier. Even just a hint would have helped. Emmet would have gotten the message.
“I would have,” Ingo protests, “if I had any idea how to.”
That’s fair. Can Emmet really blame him? He’d had no idea how to ask, either. He never had to bother learning how to navigate approaching someone like that, not when the only person he wanted to be that close to had been right by his side since birth. So, completely lacking any communication skills to use to broach the subject, the two of them had just orbited each other silently, wishing the other would speak up, convinced that they would be overstepping if they spoke up themselves.
Like a couple of lovesick fools.
“You are absolutely certain it’s not a bother if we stay like this?” Ingo asks, his grip growing tighter still. “For just a while longer, I mean.”
Emmet nearly snaps at him to stop asking, of course it’s okay, of course it is, stop acting like it’s weird. But he doesn’t. No need to get defensive. Ingo is still adjusting. He’s trying his best. “As long as you want.”
“Well, maybe not that long,” his brother says, amused. “We have to get up at some point, Emmet.”
“Nope.” He’s not getting away that easily. “I just decided. We are staying here forever.”
“I’m not sure the pokemon would appreciate that.” As if summoned, Durant pokes their head up from where they were hiding (not so stealthily) underneath the coffee table. “Who’s going to feed them if we stay here forever?”
Emmet shrugs. “They’re smart. They will figure something out.” Durant chooses this moment to scoot off into the kitchen, sensing an opening. They’ve always been a troublemaker. “See?”
Ingo laughs. “Fine,” he says, giving in. Not that he put up much of a fight in the first place. If the thing you want is being freely offered to you, why wouldn’t you accept? “Forever, then.”
They can’t literally stay cuddling on the couch forever. For one thing, Emmet can already hear the crinkling of a plastic bag in the kitchen, which is no good: Durant knows they’re not allowed to get into the potato chips. He’s going to have to get up and shoo them away in a minute or two.
Or three. Or four. Emmet really doesn’t want to move. He was being serious about staying right here, just like this, forever.
“Durant, no,” he says, getting up anyways, chasing the naughty pokemon out of the kitchen. “Bad baby. Bad!” They scurry away, crawling up onto the couch and hiding behind Ingo, who Emmet immediately collapses back onto. “Don’t go crying to him. He’s not going to save you,” Emmet warns them, even as he busies himself with curling back around his brother. “You are verrrrrrry grounded.”
“Don’t be mean,” Ingo scolds. “Durant, if you’re good, you can have a potato chip later.”
“One,” Emmet specifies. “One chip.”
“Yes, yes,” Ingo rolls his eyes. Always too indulgent with the pokemon. Always too indulgent with Emmet. “One chip.”
“Later.” If it weren’t for Emmet playing bad cop, their pokemon would surely have wound up spoiled. “And only if they’re good.”
“Much later,” Ingo agrees, relaxing against him once again. “I’m a bit occupied at the moment, in any case.”
Everything, Emmet realizes, is going to be okay.
They were separated. They were reunited. They weren’t quite sure how to go back to the way things were before, if they even could, if they even should. And yet, they still found a way to successfully recouple their cars, in the end.
Maybe all the trouble was worth it. Emmet supposes they were due for a little conflict, of both the individual and interpersonal variety, to shake up their perfect little lives. And it wasn’t that big of a problem, all things told: just some distance they had to work together to overcome.
And if you don’t have that, you don’t have a very compelling love story, now do you?