Chapter Text
“So what you’re telling me is, you got lost, and bullied some random guy, and now you’re friends with him?” Xisuma wondered what happened for Exavion to be this oblivious to social norms.
“Yup!”
“Exavion, I hope you know that’s not how you make friends.”
“Huh? What’d you mean it’s not how you make friends? I mean it’s how I normally interact with you.” Exavion tilted his head in confusion.
“I mean- it’s different I’m your brother, he’s some random dude.” Xisuma sighed, wondering how he was going to find the guy Exavion was bothering earlier. Wait bothering? When did Xisuma start thinking his brother was a bother? That was weird it was almost as if-
“It’s different? How?” Exavion broke through Xisuma’s train of thought.
“Relationships with your siblings are different than friendships Exavion. You can treat your friends like your siblings but that’s only when your close. But people you just met, that’s mean.” Xisuma explained, sitting in their small hideout.
“Oh. Okay.” Exavion’s antennae lowered, and Xisuma winced at the thought that he upset his brother.
“Hey, I brought you something.” Xisuma tried to distract his brother from what he said.
Exavion perked up at his words, “Huh? What’d you bring me?”
Xisuma smiled, and pulled out a package of Cobblemon cards, “For your collection. I saw you eying em last time we went past the store.” Exavion’s face split with a smile.
“Thank you so much Xisuma! Wait, how’d you even get these? I thought you didn’t get a job? You didn’t steal them did you?”
“It’s not stealing, it’s sharing is caring.” Xisuma smiled mischievously, “Plus, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“Xisuma, you need to stop doing that…” Exavion frowned.
“You want the cards or not?”
“I still want them.” Exavion snatched them from Xisuma, ripping the card pack open. “Oo! No duplicates this time!” Exavion placed the cards into a binder that Xisuma had supplied for him, that held over a hundred cards at the moment. “Thanks ‘Suma!”
“No problem Exavion.” Xisuma smiled at his brothers excitement, his worries melting away. Exavion filtered through all his different items in his stash, and his hand froze over a picture of the End.
“Suma?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’ll ever go back the way it used to be?”
“…I dunno. I hope so.”
Xisuma felt terrible. He hadn’t told Exavion that the portal had been closed. He hadn’t told him they barely escaped the massacre of their people. He hadn’t told him. Hehadnttoldhimhehadnttoldhim-
“Xisuma? You okay?”
It wasn’t okay, the air felt thinner than usual. It hurt to breathe more than usual- He couldn’t breathe- Xisuma sucked in a breath. Calm. You must be calm.
“I’m fine!” Xisuma managed to keep his voice steady and paste a smile on his face.
“…If you say so.”
“By the way, I also found a cool bottle cap! I’m going to add it to the wall!” Xisuma pulled out a bottle cap, a small orange and red one, and stuck it to a large wall of bottle caps.
“I swear there are more bottle caps than walls…” Exavion muttered, ignoring the obvious subject change.
“Huh? What’d you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Okaay…” Xisuma looked at the wall of bottle caps.
“How many do you think you have?”
“As of today? 346!”
“…do you like, have too much free time or something? How. Just how. Y'know what, I don’t wanna know.”
“Your loss.” Xisuma stretched, yawning, and peeked his head out the hole in the wall into the alley, seeing the dark streets. “Its late. We should probably go to bed.”
“Fine- but! I want the flower pillow you found.”
“Huh? Why! It’s my favourite-“ Xisuma hugged the pink pillow to his chest.
“Because it’s pretty.”
“…fine.” Xisuma handed Exavion the pink flower pillow, and laid down on the ground next to his brother. “Night Exavion.”
“Night ‘Suma.”