#Anyway that guilt manifests into ingo apologizing (more than once) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kelpiemomma · 7 months

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Ingo held Khan's scaled wrist gently as he examined the claws his friend now sported. Five fingers had been turned into four deadly talons, new to Ingo but already put to gruesome work by the hybrid.

"I'm sorry about your hands..." he said softly. Khan shrugged as he examined his other claws.

"Eh, don't sweat it. It's hardly the worst thing they've done to me." He responded mildly. As though his body being changed against his will to a weapon was the norm. Ingo glanced at his eyes, his fangs, the remnants of his horns- and remembered this wasn't the first time his friend had been altered against his will. His grip on Khan's hand tightened.

"Still," he insisted, "if we'd found you guys sooner..."

If they'd found Khan and Nana sooner, Khan would still have his hands and Nana would still have both eyes. If they'd been just a little faster to realize the hybrids were missing, to remember where they had come from, if they had pushed their pokemon a little harder to fly and fight-

"I'm glad you found us at all, honestly." Khan said it off the cuff, without thinking, but must have felt how Ingo's grip tightened again. He turned his head to look at his friend and Ingo felt mild dread at the look in his eyes. As Khan leaned forward he cringed back just slightly.

"Hey, look on the bright side!" Khan accentuated his words with a point from his claws. He must have seen Ingo's confused upset because he smiled wider.

"The bright side?" Ingo repeated. There was a bright side to this?

Khan shut his eyes as if he was a teacher explaining something incredibly simple.

"Oh, my sweet summer train man, of course there is!"

He stuck out his claws like Elesa and Skylar did when they were showing off freshly done nails. The scales gleamed in the light, dimly iridescent.

"I match your color scheme now!"

Ingo's gaze remained on the claws for a moment. Was this really a good thing? Khan had lost another important part of himself because he and Emmet had been too slow. Was the simple black nature of his scales that important? Could it make up for everything else?

He looked up with tired eyes, meeting Khan's gaze again, and realized that Khan was not as unaffected as he thought. He was giving Ingo the softest smile he'd ever witnessed on the other man's scarred face, his eyes half shut and gentle. Khan had been there when it happened, had suffered the consequences, just as he had the last time he'd been abducted. He would figure out how to deal with his new appendages just as he always had before. It was not quite old hat, but it was also nothing new, and something would have been changed no matter how quickly he and Emmet had arrived.

For the first time in the years he'd known Khan, the hybrid was being sympathetic and offering Ingo a comfort over something he had no control of. Yes, he now had claws and scales, but they were the color that Ingo most frequently found himself in. The color of one of his closest family members. Ingo wondered if Khan had used that as a way to comfort himself after it happened, but didn't dare ask. Instead he tried smiling. Surely it was weak, but the worried look in Khan's eyes lessened.

"Yes, you're quite right." Ingo grasped Khan's claws as if they were still his hands, holding them tightly. He would get used to them, just as Khan had. It would be alright. "Another color would have been quite unfortunate."

#Khan a.#I have no name for this au #TLDR Emmet and Nana met up in the future-present. Nana developed beyond Khan and they managed to track them down in Hisui #And get them home. Akari comes with ofc. Ingo and Akari go back to visit their friends in Hisui regularly. They return after a visit #To find Emmet in distress. While they were gone Khan and Nana were abducted by the organization that originally made them what they are.#Secret labs are not as easy to find as people think and it takes some time for them to track down where Khan and Nana ended up. When they D #They find nana missing an eye. Khan missing his hands. And (to their surprise and horror) Rei. From Hisui.#Who is now a (hisuian) Growlithe hybrid in a similar manner nana and Khan are also hybrids.#Everyone gets saved but not without some losses. Given ow hpeaceful everything has otherwise been... this is upsetting to the train men.#Akari copes by making a pros and cons list of their new abilities and helping Rei adjust to the future #(he can't go back to Hisui because he still exists there... nobody knows why or how he came to be in the organizaion's clutches)#Emmet and Ingo are determined to track down and eradicate the rest of the offshoot branches of the organization but each feel guilty #If they'd been faster. If they'd been smarter. If they'd found a clue a little earlier.#If if if if if. Khan and Nana are no strangers to undesired body modification and are already getting used to them.#(primarily by mocking each other. They're allowed to. They've seen the worst of each other in the first hybridizations and now this.)#For Khan it's very much a 'well. This wasn't planned. Time to adapt.'#At least they didn't give him soft mittens he couldn't inflict damage in #but now he has to be careful lest he unintentionally inflict damage (he cut Akari by accident once already. It gutted him.)#Anyway that guilt manifests into ingo apologizing (more than once)#And Khan trying to convince him it's fine. It sucks but it's fine. It's not ingo or Emmet's fault.#Ingo better appreciate gentle and sympathetic Khan while he's got him cause once the guilt is over Khan is going back to being a bastard #Also I apologize for the beanie but I haven't figured out hair for ANY info #And I was not about to draw his bitch ass hat

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