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It didn’t start on the sunny afternoon in Nimbasa city, with two twins and their best friend getting lunch at a cafe. Nor did it start with the reunion of brothers about a year prior, or the whispered confession of amnesia. It didn’t even start when a portal had swallowed the elder years before that, leaving behind no clues or leads and the other heartbroken.
No, it had started from birth, and though normally it could be healthily managed, the aforementioned woes of the most recent years had put a sizable dent in Emmet’s coping mechanisms.
“I have some big news!” Elesa said once she, Ingo, and Emmet had all ordered their sandwiches and drinks.
“Your earrings are new?”
Elesa bumped Emmet’s arm lightly. “No, you wobuffoon. Bigger news than that, who do you take me for?”
“I don’t know, Elesa,” said Ingo with a smirk in his voice. “You do tend to hype things up more than a little at times.”
“So do you, Mr. Super Bravo.”
“We all get it,” said Emmet somewhat impatiently, though he looked close to laughing. “You are the hype-woman, he is the hype-man, and I am the long-suffering brother. Now tell us what is so exciting.”
“Okay okay,” Elesa said with a giggle. “The news iiiiiis…” She drew out the syllable much longer than she needed to before continuing. “I’m going to be moving in with Skyla!”
There was a beat of silence, then–
“Oh congratulations, Elesa! What prompted this change?”
“I’m starting to have a suspicion she’s gonna propose soon,” replied Elesa, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “So… Hey, Emmet. Are you okay?”
Emmet hadn’t spoken yet, and his face looked like it had drained of blood. When asked, he forced a sickly smile onto his face before speaking in a faint sort of way. “That means we do not get to walk to work together on Thursdays and Fridays? Or visit you when our schedules align after work?”
Elesa’s face morphed to one of sympathy. “I’m gonna have to commute by train every morning and night, yeah. So no more walking to work together. I’m sure Skyla would love to host you two as well, for when you can make it out to Mistralton, though. But don’t worry, our midday meetups will stay exactly the same!”
“...I think I need a moment.” Before either of them could get a word in, Emmet had stood and strode away from their little outdoor table and over towards the nearby park.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Ingo said, but Elesa cut him off.
“Go make sure he’s safe and bring him back when he’s okay. You know that I’m not gonna get upset over a meltdown or overstimulation or something like that.” Elesa looked a little sad, but there was not a hint of anger or dishonesty on her face.
Ingo nodded, then set out after Emmet. The thicker vegetation of the little inner city wild area was both a blessing and a curse. It shielded them from potential onlookers (ones that weren’t patrat or pidove or sewaddle, that was), but it also obscured Emmet from Ingo rather quickly.
I don’t want to have to shout for him. I’m so loud it may cause a panic, or simply startle him more…
Ingo stopped, unsure which tracks to travel, when he heard the gentle squawks of a familiar bird pokemon. He turned in the direction of the noises and found his brother, sitting limply on a bench, completely still except for the hand he used to methodically stroke Archeops’s feathers. The pokemon had his head on Emmet’s thigh, sitting next to him on the bench with his tail dangling off, peeping and crooning at his trainer.
“Emmet?” Ingo was able to make his voice soft as he walked over slowly. Nothing about Emmet’s demeanor changed, but he didn’t get startled when Ingo sat beside him, opposite Archeops. “What is wrong?”
It took a moment of Emmet struggling for words before Ingo hurriedly continued. “You do not have to speak verbally if you do not wish to…” He tapered off when Emmet held up a hand, then looked up at him.
“I am… Emmet.” As if those words had grounded him, the next he spoke were less troublesome. “I know you are still not fast with your recall of Unovan Sign Language. I wish to be understood. And not cause you trouble with translating.”
“... If you are certain.”
Emmet took a deep breath, then spoke more. “It is…. It is change, Ingo.” Though Emmet’s monotone was the same as always, the key word was said with a sort of intensity that was impossible to ignore. “Things keep changing. I keep getting… Getting thrown off.”
He sniffed, and a few tears dripped down his cheeks. “I hate it. I hate it so much. There is no stability, and I need stability. Just for a bit. It is not Elesa’s fault. I love that she and Skyla are doing well. I just…”
His voice had gotten more ragged as he went on, closer to sob than speech. “I want to be safe. I want an unchanging life, just for a little bit. We already have to adjust, to cope, to alter the way we do things. Because of our autism. I come up with ways to adjust. And then life comes back with a surprise. I cannot keep accounting for this. But I am thirty-two, I cannot keep acting like this!” Emmet, distraught and ashamed, looked over at his twin, who he could tell looked sympathetic despite his frown.
Ingo had been forced to adapt and be fluid via trial by fire in Hisui, and he’d come out of it desensitized to change. Emmet’s trial by fire had only broken him further. It wasn’t fair.
“It affects my perception of people. It undermines my feeling of safety. It… It sends me off the rails, with no hope of recovery.”
“Not alone, perhaps.” Emmet looked at Ingo again, taking in his features. The small goatee had somehow been a blow for Emmet too. Another change, another reminder of how they were no longer the same. It had frustrated the younger twin to tears, the feeling of cold, sick panic. It was facial hair on someone else’s face.
Why did it make him feel so scared?
Ingo’s clothing preferences had changed, his voice had changed, his taste had changed… His hat and coat, status symbols meant to be one half of a pair, had changed. There was no part of him truly left untouched.
Taking it all in, seeing it all, left Emmet unmoored, in no way certain that Ingo was back to stay or that he’d ever feel stable again or or or or–
“With help, a train off its tracks can be repaired and run again, eventually. It will just take proper care.”
Ingo remembered Emmet’s reaction to an offhand comment he’d said, less than a month after returning to Nimbasa. It had been nighttime, and Ingo had been overwhelmed by the noise and brightness of the city once again.
“Maybe we should move somewhere out of the city,” he’d mused aloud. “This is too much for my nerves…”
It had never been more than a fleeting thought, but it has still caused Emmet to drop the mug of tea he’d been bringing Ingo onto the floor where it shattered. Ingo had had to use the xtranceiver, which he barely knew how to operate, to call the man who was their adopted father to come help Emmet calm down.
It was all Ingo could think of there in the park, the echo of Emmet’s weak voice from that day begging Ingo not to make him leave or choose between his twin and his home. He knew Emmet felt terrible about that day and refused to speak about it. Eventually, there had been a compromise of a two-week vacation away from the city instead. That did not seem to have upset Emmet; Ingo was happy to accommodate the brother who was so understanding of the amnesia situation, who he loved completely already, missing memories and all.
“With time, your skills for managing this fear will return,” Ingo continued. “You beat it once, and you like winning more than anything else, after all.” He took Emmet’s free hand, lacing their fingers together and leaning against Emmet’s shoulder as a comforting weight. “Who’s to say you won’t beat it again?”
A flicker of Emmet’s usual smile passed across his face, but then it fell again. At least he looked less distraught. “I will miss Elesa, though. And her apartment. It is a safe, comforting place.”
“She’s not going very far,” Ingo reassured him. “We will still see her plenty, though I too am sad about the loss of the space we shared with her, and the moments we will have to miss out on.”
“... How do you do that, now?”
Ingo blinked, meeting Emmet’s gaze for a moment. “Do… Do what?”
“Let the changes and fears and panic roll over you. Like a storm over the city. Or raindrops over a ducklett. You used to be like me. Just… Not as affected, yup.”
“I don’t… Really know. You already know my time in Hisui affected me in many ways… I will have to think on it, alright? I do not have an answer for you right now, but remain at this station and I will come back to you with more. Is that amenable?”
Emmet nodded. “Acceptable.”
After a moment of more comfortable, not-distressed silence, Emmet spoke up again. “Elesa understands, by the way. Do not worry about her. She helped care for me in the days I could not do so myself. I will apologize, but she has seen worse.”
“She probably also saw worse when we were kids.”
“Oh yes. And we have helped her with overstimulation in return. We are family.”
Ingo smiled in his own special way, not bothering to strain his mouth like he may have done in Hisui. “We are family, yes.” Another pause. “One thing to think about, Emmet, to help with all of this, is the ammunition we have against Skyla now.”
“Oh?” Emmet paused in wiping off his face to look at Ingo once more.
“Instead of Skyla moving in with Elesa and commuting to work every day, it is the other way around. Elesa will take a train to Nimbasa instead of Skyla taking a plane to Mistralton. This proves that, even to Skyla herself, trains are the superior and more useful, adaptable mode of transit.”
Emmet had to parse the words before he burst out laughing, wrapping his arms around Ingo while his twin laughed too. Even Archeops joined in with a happy screech.
Despite everything, despite all that had happened over the years, some things never did change.