A Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon fanfiction. Set a few months after the events of the plot of the game. Mr. Nuzleaf can't get over his guilt of what he did to Rex(player OC) and Riley(partner OC) despite everyone forgiving him. Carracosta is worried, and figures the only one who can help is Rex. Oneshot. Spoiler Warning for those who haven't played Super Mystery Dungeon!

Guilt and Forgiveness
Out in the middle of the forest, a little treeko named Rex and his partner in exploration, Riley both celebrated. They had both just found a small loot of treasure.
"At last! We can finally reap the fruits of our labor! All of this loot is now officially ours," the little Riolu cheered in excitement.
Rex laughed a little bit. It hadn't occured to his friend that this loot was in fact owned by the client they were trying to find this for. It had been stolen by a local crooked kecleon and who had hid it away in the forest before getting caught and put away in prison.
"I will let him have his moment. It's good for him," Rex mused.
After the eager Riley finally calmed down from his celebration. Rex grabbed the chest and he dragged it over to his friend.
"Well then. Perhaps we should be off," Rex said to Riley.
"Oh yeah," Riley said, scratching the back of his head. "I forgot about how much this part sucked."
The duo picked up the chest and carried it slowly back to the edge of the forest to where they left their cart at. After about a three hour on and off hike, they finally made it.
"Good job." said a familiar voice, coming from directly ahead of the duo. The two looked ahead to see a tall and slender form coming into view. It was Ampharos, the Expedition Society's leader.
"Ampharos!" the two exclaimed, rather surprised by his arrival.
"What are you doing here?" Riley asked.
"Yeah. Weren't you supposed to be back in Lively Town?" Rex added.
"I can take it from here with returning the treasure back to Klefki. You two have been working so hard, and I know your guardians have been wanting to see you again." Ampharos said.
Riley jumped a bit out of surprise. "I can't believe I forgot about that! I promised pops the last time I wrote him that I would be back home after this expedition. It's been so long since I last saw him."
"Well its been a month a half since you two left the village to become Master Explorers. You have been busy, but now that you two are done with my training in Lively Town, you can return home to your village," Ampharos stated.
Without a single word or even so much as a warning, Riley dropped the chest and bolted off down the path towards Serene Village to go meet up with his dad before he killed him. "Bye Rex! Bye Ampharos! Thanks for the help! Got to go!" he screamed, leaving a trail of dust behind him as he moved like lightning.
Ampharos chuckled and he looked back at Rex, who too laughed.
"Don't you think you should get going too. It'll be getting dark soon, and I know Mr. Nuzleaf probably misses you."
Rex sighed as his thoughts drifted back to his gaurdian, Nuzleaf.
"I wonder what he's up to right now. I'm worried he won't be the same when I get back," he said, looking over at Serene Village in the distance down the path.
Ampharos frowned slightly and he patted Rex on the back for comfort.
"I bet he's fine. Now why don't you get going. I'll see you around town tomorrow," he said.
After of second, Rex finally nodded in agreement and said his goodbyes, heading back to Serene Village, and heading back to his home.
Meanwhile...
Back in the village, an anxious Nuzleaf along with his friend Carracosta, who was the foster-father of Riley, sat in the Café Connection drinking Tea and while waiting on their kids to get back home.
Carracosta sensed the stress coming from his friend and knew why he felt this way.
"You can't keep feeling so guilty for what you did Nuzleaf. It's bad for somebody to hold to so much pain and not move on. It has been at least a month and half have since the events of Dark Matter and the staged kidnapping on Riley. He knows why it is things happened that way and understands that you feel bad for what you did," Carracosta tried to persuade his friend. Nuzleaf looked away from the turtle and just pushed away his tea, not interested in drinking it.
"Y'all don't get it though. I adopted Rex all that time ago back when I was possessed by Dark Matter, so at the time, I had no idea who was in control of my own emotions at the time. And because of that, how can he or even I be sure that any of the feelings of being a parent towards him were legitimate? How can I be sure? Is our relationship all just built upon a-”
"Stop it!" Corracosta cut off Nuzleaf midsentence and grabbed his arm. "If he saw it that way. He wouldn't even spoken to you again and you know that. This guilt and fear of facing Rex again has eaten at you to the point to where you haven't been sleeping well. You haven't been eating at all. I can see you've gotten skinnier."
Nuzleaf pulled away and he stood up to leave the café only to be stopped and grabbed on the arm by the turtle again.
"No. You aren't running away this time! What happened is now behind you. You have to face that guilt head on and accept it," Carracosta said.
Nuzleaf sighed a bit more. "I'll see you around, but please try this for the kid. He cares for you more than you know," Carracosta said before letting him go.
Nuzleaf just pulled his arm away and continued on out the café silently. Carracosta sighed and just went back to his tea, knowing that there was no convincing him. The only thing that would make things better again would be for him to see his kid again.
"Oh. What does he know? He didn't know what it was like," Nuzleaf mumbled to himself as he slowly made his way through the town plaza.
"He probably hat-" the currently zoned out pokemon was cut off from finishing his sentence before he and someone else suffered from a large crash.
"Owww..." he groaned as he collided with the ground.
"Hey kid. Watch where you are-" he paused before realizing that the individual that had careened into him had in fact been Riley himself.
"Riley!" he exclaimed before helping the young Riolu to his feet. Of all the times and of all the people he had to run into, Riley was the second to last person he wanted to face. It wasn't anything that Nuzleaf had against Riley. In fact he was rather fond of the kid, but it was what he had done to him that struck him with all of this guilt. Despite it being for the sake of the future of the planet, he still felt very guilty, as Riley was Rex's closest friend.
Riley held his head for a second as he slowly regained his composure and then realized that the person he ran into had been in fact Nuzleaf.
"Mr. Nuzleaf! Oh my god! I am so sorry. I should not have done that. I ran to my house to see if my pops was home, but then saw he wasn't so I decided to see if he might be in the town square. Do you perhaps know where he might be?" Riley asked.
Feeling a knot in forming in his throat, Nuzleaf just nodded and pointed the Café not ten feet away from where they stood. Riley looked through a window to see Carracosta sitting at one of the tables drinking his Tea. "Thank you, Mr. Nuzleaf. I had a feeling pops would have been here. Now why don't come with me? It's been awhile since I have seen you," he asked.
Nuzleaf, realizing that declining the boy's request would make himself feel worse, decided to come along.
"Ok. But...but only for a sec. I need to get home and finish cleaning up a little before Rex gets here," he answered, although what he had said was an absolute lie, as Nuzleaf always made sure to keep everything as tidy as possible in his house, despite his normally laid back and easygoing personality.
"Oh... ok. I won't hold you up too long then. So lets go!" Riley replied before nearly dragging the bigger pokemon across the ground. Right as the two entered the Café, Riley looked over to see Corracosta sitting at a table by himself sipping on tea. The little riolu sprinted through the entire restuarant, knocking over other pokemon, chairs, and even an entire group of stacked up tables as he hurried to see his "pops".
Nuzleaf followed slowly behind, apologizing and setting stuff back up in an attempt to stop the path of mindless destruction that Riley had left behind.
Carracosta, just realizing what had happened, didn't have enough time to see who or what it had been that caused the property damage before being blind-sidedly tackled by his son.
"Pops!" Riley cried as he jumped onto the giant turtle pokemon's back, crawled over his shoulder into his lap, and buried his head into his chest crying his eyes out.
This shocked Carracosta quite a bit. Not only was he unable to see this coming, but this was the first time he had seen his son cry in all the time that he had adopted him. As he looked around realizing it was his son that had in fact made this trail of a mess straight to him, he chuckled.
"You are gone for a few months and the moment you get back into town to see me, you can't help but stir a little bit of trouble whether you meant to or not." He said, before wrapping his arms around the kid and stroking his fur on his face, cooing his cries.
Riley just held on tighter to his father, wanting nothing more than just be held by him.
"Shh... Shh... It is ok. There's no need to cry. Why are you doing that to begin with? You do realize that you were going to see me regardless tonight. Were you incapable of waiting that much longer just to see me?" Carracosta asked.
Riley dried up the tears that stained his eyes and he looked up at his father from his lap and nodded.
"I missed you pops...I really missed you," was all Riley to managed say under his snivels as he tried to calm down. He was just so happy to see him that could barely keep himself contained.
"I missed you too, but I know that making a trail of destruction in your efforts to make it to your old man isn't the best choice you could have made in this situation," he teased Riley.
While under normal circumstances, he would have gotten upset with his son over this, but it had been so long since they had last seen each other that he didn't care. He would pay the owner the damage cost out of pocket.
Riley laughed and he wrapped his arms around his dad's neck and buried into his neck and cuddled him.
"I love you too," Carracosta said to Riley.
Seeing the two were having a long and well-deserved family moment, Nuzleaf decided to use this opportunity to slip out and head back to his house. Carracosta and Riley had unintentionally forgotten about his existance anyways, with it not mattering much to him. While he felt happy to see them together again, he couldn't help but feel disheartened at the same time. He hadn't even formed a real relationship like that with his kid at all. Yes, he cared about Rex in the way a father would, but he felt like there was a huge rift between them that had been created due in part to the events that played out when he was possessed by Dark Matter and when he reedemed himself through the ritualistic sacrificing of Mew in order to prevent that evil threat from ever arising again. Fortunately by some miracle, that not even Arceus had been able to explain, Riley was returned to them back after he had disappeared and turned into Mew.
"I can't think of how to begin talking to him again," Nuzleaf said to himself as he entered his house and lay down on his bed in the main room.
"He won't be mad will he? I mean he has every right too, but you know he won't be. He is a sweet kid who doesn't hold grudges, but this will still be hard to say," he muttered to himself.
Staring at the ceiling for the next hour, he debated how he should go about trying to talk to Rex. There was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to tell him how much he was sorry for the things he did, how much he wanted to have a real relationship with him and not just looking after him to use for his own personal gain. But out of all the things he wanted so the most to him... he wanted to say, "Rex, there is something I need to say and don't how to say it but,"
"But what is it," said a voice that froze the pokémon in place. Nuzleaf looked over to see that the one person he had both looking forward to and dreading to see at the same time for the past month was standing right in the entrance to his house.
"You're here early. I thought you would have been arriving after dark. I haven't even started preparing dinner yet," he said with a hint of uneasiness.
Rex picked up on this vibe and realized that there was something wrong.
"Oh my god. You are a whole lot worse than what Carracosta described to me in his letters," he exclaimed upon realizing how much skinnier Nuzleaf had become since the last time he saw him.
The elder pokémon climbed out of bed, not knowing how to react to this.
"You knew this whole time?" Nuzleaf asked, rather shocked by this revelation.
Rex nodded, feeling bad for not having said anything sooner.
"Yes." he answered him, looking down at the floor ashamed. "I should have a said something sooner. I'm sorry. This is my fa-" Rex said.
"Shutup kid!" Nuzleaf screamed, cutting off him off.
Rex looked up rather horrified and in a state of disbelief. Not once had Nuzleaf ever yelled like that him before, much less anyone else.
"Don't you dare say that any of this your fault. None of this is! All of it is mine! Lying to you about my health, sacrificing your best friend despite it being for the betterment of the world, taking you in letting you think I was a father-figure and just using you as a means to end. All of it was my fault! I have been bearing this guilt for so long that it is tearing, because I don't know to let it go and move on. How could I? I did the unforgiveable and yet here you are. I've wanted to say that how sorry I was for so long now, but couldn't even bring myself to tell you in writing. I've wanted to tell you that I want to start over and have as my son for real this time. I wanted to tell this all. But my own damn fear of hurting you further only served to make things worse, and I am..." Nuzleaf stuttered a bit in his words, taking light breaths as he had not said so much on small breath of air.

"I am so sorry. I don't deserve to be your father. I don't deserve to even live in this village despite the forgiveness of everyone else and their acceptance of me as one of their own. Rex. I am sorry,” He finished.
Small tears started leaking from his eyes as he collapsed to his knees, reaching his breaking point. He looked away from Rex out of shame.
"Mr. Nuzleaf. You only did what you thought was best with Riley and I don't hate you for that. You were under the control of Dark Matter when you made first met me so I can't blame you for any of that. You are good person." Rex thought to himself as he watched Nuzleaf.
Then, all of the sudden, Nuzleaf opened his eyes in shock as felt something wrap itself around his chest tightly and not let go. Looking down, he saw that Rex had run up to him and began hugging him tightly without any word or warning.
"Kid..." he was speechless.
After all that Nuzleaf had said and done, Rex still went out of his way to comfort him. He still cared about him.
"A horrible father wouldn't have been willing to admit his mistakes to his son and then apologize for everything regardless of if it was completely his fault. A real dad would lie to his son so that way he wouldn't worry his kid." Rex said, still hugging Nuzleaf.
"Thank you," Nuzleaf said, wrapping his arms around the little treeko hugging his chest.
While Rex's reassurance helped him calm down, he still felt guilt eating away inside of him.
"But I still haven't been a good papa to you. I lead you..." Nuzleaf said.
"Then why don't we start over?" Rex interjected. He released from his hug and looked back up to him.
This caught Nuzleaf off guard.
"Is he truly serious about this? Starting over like nothing ever happened. After everything that I have done, he wants to wipe the slate clean and start over." he thought to himself.
"After all that I put you through kid, you still want me to be your dad?" he asked.
Rex chuckled under his breath and he nodded.
"I forgave you a long time ago. And you're the only dad I would ever want," he answered back.
Upon hearing this, for the first time since in what was a couple of months, a smile wedged itself onto across Nuzleaf's face. Through all of the negativity he had put himself through recently, he genuinely felt a sense of happiness.
"While I am pretty sure I know this answer, but just to be sure, do you really want to live with me as your father?" he asked, kneeling down in front of the little gecko pokemon.
"Daddy!" Rex cheered, jumping up and playfully tackling Nuzleaf, bringing him to the ground with a thud. The caught off guard father half-expected this as a response, but didnt mind it nonetheless.
"Don't let your guard down dad. You never know when someone might get you like that." he said. Nuzleaf laughed a bit as Rex sat on his chest, thinking he had gotten him.
"You think you got me huh kid? Just because I am your papa, that means you think I'll go easy on you. That's so cute," Nuzleaf said, sitting up. He pulled Rex into a hug as he stood up and held him in a bear hug, keeping him from moving.

"Ahhh! You got me!" Rex cried. He struggled to move his arms, but to no avail. He didn't expect this. But not even after a half a minute later, Nuzleaf loosened his grip enough on his son allowing him to move his arms again.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to strangle you out." Nuzleaf said, while smirking and turning his bear hug into an actual one his son close to his chest, embracing him. Rex wrapped his arms his neck, and they both smiled, happier than ever before.
Any feelings of guilt, doubt, or self-pity that Nuzleaf had only mere minutes ago had been replaced with absolute joy and bliss. He was now sure that he would act as a fine father for Rex. Little Rex felt only happiness of the fact that for real this time, he had the father he had always wanted.
"Hey dad." Rex asked his dad as he was set back on the ground.
Nuzleaf, who had only just started to prep their supper looked back to his son.
"Yes son. What is it?" he asked, while cutting up fruit for them.
Rex gulped a little bit as he felt kind of nervous to ask Nuzleaf this question, even though he was now his son.
"Can I sleep with you in your room tonight?" he asked.
Nuzleaf chuckled a bit and nodded. "Sure thing kid. While, I'd expect you to sleep in your own room, tonight will be a special exception." he said.
"I'll prep our bed as soon we get done eating." he said, setting the plates down on the table for them to eat. "Now dig in," he said.
The two of them ate their meal together rather quickly as they had both become famished from their emotionally heated conversation beforehand. Afterwards, Nuzleaf set up their bed to fit two instead of one for the night.
"Now kid. I think its time we hit the hay. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." Nuzleaf said.
Rex, exhausted from such a long day nodded and yawned. "Yes sir." he answered, lying down.
Nuzleaf curled up right next to Rex, who he in turn cuddled up against his father's chest.
"Hey dad." Rex said, right before yawning and looking directly into his father's eyes.
"Yes son. What is it?" Nuzleaf asked.
"I love you," Rex answered. "I love you so very much."
He put his head up under his neck nuzzling his dad.
Nuzleaf blushed slightly, and he in return kissed his son on the cheek before responding in turn with an "I love you too."
It wasn't very long before Rex had passed out while still embracing his father. This left Nuzleaf laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling with his son on top of his chest. He put a hand on Rex's back pulling him in close.
"I promise you son. I won't let you down as your father, and if I do, may Arceus strike me down." he said under his breath, before falling into a blissful sleep, with his new son in his arms.