Chapter Text
The twins were ten years old when the accident happened.
Ingo listened for Emmet heartbeat but to no avail, when he withdrew from his twins chest he was faced with the reality of-
Of white mist seeping into his brother's mouth and his eyes opening up, glowing naturally.
“Emmet...”
The thing in his brother's body looked at him with excitement, something uncanny now surrounding him.
“I am Emmet! I’m alright now! AH, but you're bleeding... That is verrry bad, let's get you to a hospital”, the thing saying it was Emmet held his hand and drew the both of them to their feet.
It was.... it was Emmet.
He was Emmet, in the way he spoke, in the way he walked like a tinman when excited, in the way he hid beneath his hat when things got overwhelming; it was all Emmet.
Even now when he wasn’t always solid, when his eyes were glowing in the dark and his smile could grow *too* wide and sharp.
Emmet did give Ingo a small heart attack every so often, sometimes when he couldn’t sleep he would drift through the upper mattras of their bunk bed to join Ingo in on the lower bunk.
Or when Emmet vanished in the middle of the night only to return with a small ghost pokemon as a gift to Ingo.
Still, it was Emmet and Ingo didn’t know what deity to thank for his return but he would do so for the rest of his life.
Ingo lived with Emmet like this for years before any unease truly came to him.
even with his new idiosyncrasies Emmet was Emmet.
Ingo loved Emmet dearly, could not imagine a life without him, of course he didn't care what Emmet was.
That was until he saw Emmet consume a whole roasted chicken like it was the size of a hard candy.
The two had grown into their late teens and started working in Nimbasa City, only a train ride away from their hometown of Anvil.
As teens with their own money it wasn't hard to buy food for themselves still Ingo had not excepted *this*.
Emmet noticed ingo staring and turned to him with a wide too sharp smile, as if to reassure him.
It made ingo question if Emmet would eat raw meat too… or worse humans.
Emmet's smile faded down to his normal resting face, "You don't have to worry you know? I am Emmet and I would never hurt you."
"I know…"
To Ingo that knowledge came as natural as breathing.
Not once when they were children and Emmet scared away bullies was Ingo scared that he would hurt him.
Not once when he found himself so rounded by white mist in the middle of the night.
Not once when Emmet said things that should probably unnerve him.
(“This little ghost will protect your soul!”, was what Emmet had told Ingo as he handed over litwick.)
Not when Emmet started eating twice his body weight shortly after the accident.
This new eating habit though…
Ripping his jaw open to eat a whole chicken with bones...
It made Ingo question the safety of *others*.
Emmet frowned, or at the least smiled less and Ingo's concern shifted.
"I'm just… worried about eating the bones too?", he half lied.
Emmet laughed, "I could throw up the bones if that calms you!"
Ingo started laughing in turn at the absurdity of it all, "Please don't, I don't want to clean that"