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The trek up Mt. Silver never got any easier between the terrible weather, the craggy landscape, and the tenacity of the wild Pokemon who didn’t have the good sense to bunker down.
Arcanine, at least, made the whole thing slightly faster, but only the stupidly determined would even bother.
Blue trekked up it anyway.
His face stung from the bitter winds buffeting the cliffside as he directed Arcanine upwards. He knew just as well as Blue did the intricacies of the topography, but it never hurt to be careful with the amount of falling rocks and Pokemon moves busting up the landscape.
Finally, Red’s cave became visible through the viciously falling snow.
Blue grabbed his bags and slid off Arcanine’s back, returning him to his PokeBall.
Surprisingly, Red wasn’t out training, though Blue suspected he’s probably doing the only other thing he ever does up on this cold, inhospitable shithole.
And when Blue finally crested into the cave, he wasn't wrong. The sleeping Snorlax by the cave’s opening had impeccably groomed fur. The Pikachu in Red’s lap purred while he brushed it, levelling a sleepy glare when Blue stepped inside. The rest were circled around the fire, Charizard huffing a bit of flame to stoke it.
All of it looked pretty domestic, if one ignored that it was happening inside of a cave.
Blue’s heart gave a little clench and he ignored it, as usual.
He’d come to the conclusion when he was fifteen and on his seventh self-appointed mission to drag Red down Mt. Silver and back home. It’d been one of the few times Blue had managed a rough win between the two of them and he’d thought, perhaps stupidly, that if he did that then Red would just leave.
He hadn’t, and the disappointment Blue felt had nothing to do with Red’s sad mother, or Gramps’ disappointed looks, or even the old churning feelings of rivalry.
It’d been simply because Blue wanted Red there.
He hadn't known how to deal with it, so he simply hadn’t.
“I swear, every trip up here gets worse,” Blue said while tramping into the rest of the cave. Red must’ve noticed him earlier, because he didn’t even flinch, just waved him over.
Blue sat tiredly at the fire, working his shoulders out. While Arcanine had done most of the work, climbing with a Pokemon still felt awful after a while.
“You could stay here,” Red signed, which was far more than he usually did. It was tempting.
It wasn’t like the Gym had been Blue’s actual life plan, more that it had been a great opportunity fresh off his failed Championship and a way to lick his wounds while being respected.
Embarrassing, in hindsight.
“I don't have that many vacation days,” Blue said, though it was a low season for trainers and gym leaders went haring off plenty of times. The real problem had taken years of figuring out and it had been depressingly simple.
Red wanted this and not Blue.
He rolled his eyes. “Besides, who else are they gonna get for Viridian? They had to ask a twelve year old in the first place.”
Red snorted.
There wasn’t much to catch up on. Blue lost plenty of battles, it was part of being a Gym leader, but none of them had been particularly exciting.
Red hadn’t even had anyone up on Mt. Silver since Gold had wandered his way to him and then went and tattled to Blue.
“Don’t you get lonely up here?” Blue asked. It’d been something he’d not asked before, but always had wondered. “You’re not even seeing many new Pokemon this far up.”
The Donphan were the closest, but even they stayed several meters down where the weather wasn’t so windy.
Red just shook his head. Didn’t even bother with signing.
Blue didn’t ask if he’d been lonely before Blue started making his treks up. It wouldn’t be worth it.
Eventually, Pikachu was brushed and Blue’s soreness mostly worked out, and they had another battle.
They were friendly now, without all the vitriol of their youth. Blue’s Pokemon were calmer, he’d finally understood how much of a brat he’d been to them in their youth and they’d come to an accord over the years.
He let them wander around after the battle, and his Pokemon fussed around with Red’s own.
Blue turned back toward the fire Red built, the flickering flames dancing across the cave floor. There had been so much animosity before, so much tension. It wasn’t like everything was perfect now, but they were at least friends, now. It was all he could really ask for.
Eventually, they ate.
“I missed you,” Red signed, after. “I wasn’t joking about coming up more often.”
It felt good. Blue tried not to read so much into it. They were friends now. This was normal.
“I’ll try too. I wasn’t joking about the vacation days.” He nudged Red, though not too much as he knew Red didn’t really like touch. “Winter, though, I could come up for longer. The kids hate getting out in that.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Red signed and then moved to clean up.
Night came quickly, and with it the cave became even colder. Charizard came closer, with all of their Pokemon huddling around his tail.
The heat he put off was enough for humans at a distance, at least, so when Red set up his sleeping bag, Blue followed.
Blue sighed, stretching out his sleeping bag. The week he spent here would always be hell on his back and made him feel more like forty than seventeen.
Even in the dark of the cave Blue could tell that Red already had passed out, drool smearing his own less fancy sleeping bag. Blue was pretty sure it was the same one he’d had on their journey through Kanto.
The fondness crept up again.
When they were younger, Red would use things until they practically disintegrated, and it wasn’t like his mom hadn’t had the money for newer things. It’d been the familiarity of it all, just like how he’d had clothes that looked almost the same year after year.
Blue wished he would have appreciated it then.
But now was now, and he could learn to ignore the cramping nostalgia in his gut, the unbearable ruler length between their sleeping bags, and his own stupid heart.
Friendship was fine.
It had to be.
As he turned, he carefully did not think about why it was so hard to face Red, even while sleeping.