Work Text:
There’s a letter on Serena’s desk, sitting beneath three Poké Balls that are coated in a thin layer of dust.
They weren’t always. Dusty, that is. When she first arrived at Hotel Z, and when she first learnt that AZ had kept this room for her, with the big soft bed and a clumsy painting of a Venusaur sitting in the sun, they had been pretty much pristine. Apparently, AZ had cleaned these rooms on a regular basis, airing them out in case anyone he knew would drop by unexpectedly.
Five years. She never did.
But now she’s living here, and AZ isn’t. She asked Taunie not to come in and clean, because, like, this is her room. She lives here, now. Leaving her bras on the bathroom floor is her own prerogative. Plus, it would just be weird to make Taunie pick them up. It’s Serena’s own responsibility to clean and tidy up after herself.
She hasn’t slept in the same bedroom for longer than a fortnight since she was sixteen, moving out of her childhood home and across the Galarian Channel to Kalos. Her room at her mother’s house serves as a place to drop off trophies and clothes and souvenirs, more than anything. The mattress never even got a chance to form a Serena-shaped indent. A lack of personal living space has led her to forget a very important fact: she’s a fucking mess.
Or, well, that’s the state she leaves her room in, anyway. She’s not an actual mess; not personally. If anything, she’s remarkably well put together, especially now she has one of her best friends back at her side – two, if you include Shauna, who’s staying in the room next door. Everything’s fine. Everything’s great!
…
Who the fuck is she kidding?
Her Greninja, Froggy, is picking up her dirty laundry and gathering it into a pile at the end of the bed. Candy wags her little grey tail and tries to gnaw on one of the blouses, but he redirects her to a rubbery toy you’d eventually bought for her after coming to the realisation that, yes, some Pokémon really don’t care about intellectual stimulation, and just want to chew on things.
He shouldn’t have to do that. He shouldn’t even be here. He should be out of her life, running free. He should find a Trainer that would never hit him, no matter what. He’s just so caring and gentle and stupid. Why hasn’t he left yet?
Maybe he’s worried that, if he leaves, someone else will have to suffer her ill temper. She’s already hurt Espy, but that was an accident, right? Seeing her so close to the Menhir Trail rock in the lab had made her panic, and that panic made her slip up.
That’s just an excuse, though, isn’t it?
Champion Serena Langley, everyone! Unstable Pokémon beater and absentee protector of Kalos! Fuck. She’d be suicidal if she didn’t have so much shit to do.
Maybe that’s why Froggy’s staying with her. He’s waiting for her to fix all the bullshit that’s built up in her absence. She should be looking into the Holo Casters and the books she took from Lysandre Labs in order to get an idea of the goals of Team Flare Nouveau or whatever the fuck they’re called, but no. She can’t even do that. She’s pushed them off to the side, and, instead, she’s looking at the Poké Balls on her desk, moving them off of the letter they rest on, one by one.
Torkoal. Sigilyph. Golurk.
When Serena had asked Taunie about AZ’s Pokémon, she’d thought she was talking about Floette, for a bit. It took her a while to remember the man’s debut to the modern public, challenging Serena to a battle at the parade five years ago, and, even then, she couldn’t quite remember the Pokémon he’d used. She can’t have met them. She’s so kind and friendly and open; if she were to have met them, she would have insisted on seeing to their needs and playing with them and everything.
Those Pokémon must have been with AZ for so long. When Sigilyph caught Froggy with a Return, it hit so hard that it somehow managed to wind Serena. They’re all such long-lived species, too. According to the letter they rested on, Sigilyph and Golurk were nearing the ends of their lives. How did he know how old they are? How did he know how long they will live for? For how many of those three thousand years had AZ wandered the world with these Pokémon by his side?
How could he bear to replace them so easily upon Floette’s return?
In his letter, he said that he trusted her to take care of them; he said that no matter if she took them around the world on her adventures or if she found a nice reserve for them to live the rest of their lives out in, that he believed she would make the best choice for his Pokémon. His Pokémon, who were now her own.
“His Pokémon was waiting all this time… Waiting for him to return to the man he was. The man who loved Pokémon with all his heart.”
But, Professor, what does that mean? If he truly loved Pokémon, why would he leave his team here? What did they really mean to him, if they could be so easily put to one side? Or was that just Sycamore’s way of coping with the Flare Incident?
AZ is gone, now, taking the answers with him. Floette remains, but, for whatever reason, Serena doubts that she’ll be able to explain.
So this is it. All that’s left of the man she was supposed to have the rest of her life to get to know: three Poké Balls and a letter full of platitudes. No guidance, no answers, just a few meaningless words from one stranger to another. A stranger, because she didn’t know him, not really, not as a man who would abandon his Pokémon; not as someone who would believe her to forgive him that. She can’t forgive anyone, doesn’t he know? Not him, not the Professor, not even herself. Off they’ll go, all of them, to hell, and they’ll never come back – but not yet.
Kalos is broken. Team Flare ruined it: a wound at Geosenge Town, and an infection in Lumiose City. They’ve been left, festering, for the past five years, and nobody has tried to heal it. The chairman of the League had said she was too young to worry about such things, Diantha said it wasn’t her responsibility, but what did they do? And Professor Sycamore, he just drowned himself, over and over, pasting that fake smile on his face every day to praise the joy and love and harmony inherent to this living world, when, on the nights Serena visited, searching for a reason to keep going on in those first few months, he’d be on his knees, slouched over the toilet, crying for someone who didn’t care for him. She used to try to help, but, eventually, she’d just lie on his couch, listening as his Garchomp hauled him to bed.
That’s when she realised she had to leave. Him sending Sina and Dexio to Alola was a blessing in disguise – Serena booked the third seat on their row and followed them both there. She abandoned Kalos, too.
There are four sinners she knows of. The first is dead and gone; the second fled to Sinnoh to do his penance. The third is right here, sitting in this mess of a room, forcing her Pokémon to tidy up after her as she dwells in self-pity.
“Arceus,” she murmurs, pressing her face into her hands. “Fuck.”
And she’ll bring the fourth one down with her.