You don't consider yourself a collector of strays.
There's enough evidence against you there for a jury to convict, but as far as you're concerned it's just civic duty. The least you can do with an empty police station is make use of your wasted space. You ripped a hole in the door the first night that you called this place your home, nailed a rubber flap over the cavity and waited for something to follow.
Usually, you wake to a cacophony of hungry mewls.
Sometimes you get a skinny kid clutching a pocketknife like he's afraid it might cut and run.
You don't think you know him, but in the intentional darkness of your living room it's hard to say. Maybe this is karma, some part of you muses. Just goes to show, you should have opened a curtain.
The kid jabs his knife at your face.
"Are you a cop?"
He's can't be much younger than eighteen; he's got a head like a dandelion but his voice goes deep, and he's tall enough to take you in a fight. But he's still a teenager, young enough to be doing his trials — ah, yep. There's that telltale flash of gold. You relax, if only because you're starting to take measure of his psyche.
"…Not really," you tell him. "This station hasn't been operational for years.""
The kid nods. His arm shakes as he keeps pointing the knife. There's something in his other hand, held close to his chest, but it could be a backpack or a Bulbasaur for all that you can see.
"Yeah… yeah, that's what I thought — so what the fuck are you doing here? Is this a stakeout?" His voice cracks twice as he forces the sentence out.
He's scared.
Adulthood is usually beyond you, but you've got a brain that sort of works somewhere under your executive dysfunction and antidepressant stockpile. He needed a place to stay, and thought that this ruin fit the bill. Two and two make four. You're not completely useless.
"Look," you say, raising your hands in the symbol of the unarmed, "I just live here. Aether owns the town; they're the ones you should be worried about. I'm only here because they offered me low rent on an empty station."
No response. The blackness in the kid's arms squirms.
"Okay." Move slowly. Speak calmly. You've been trained firsthand in panicked meltdowns. "I'm going to reach over here and turn on a light. Nothing dangerous, I just want to know who I'm talking to. Alright with you?" This time you wait. It's important that it's his choice, not yours.
You count backwards from ten, like an astronaut waiting to be shot into space.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
"Yeah. Fine." He motions for you to get on with it using the sharp side of his knife.
You reach over to what you're calling a side table, the filing cabinet that you've filled with clothes and journals and a lamp in one open drawer. The light is old and the switch is stiff, but still it works just fine. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, though you don't think it fits you that well.
The switch clicks, and a dim warmth fills the room. You wonder if this counts as your first meeting.
Without darkness to shroud him, the intruder seems more like a trapped animal than a looming threat, cornered and ready to bite. Dark, ugly bruises stain his arms, crosshatching mottled tapestries across his shoulders and scrawny wrists. He's clutching a Wimpod in his free arm, the one that's not outstretched and shaking, and his eyes are black pinpricks lost in the mess of his hair.
You wonder which of them is more afraid.
"Where'd you get those?"
He recoils as if you're spewing hot cinders. "Don't." For a second, it looks like he's about to drop his knife. Maybe fall to his knees and retreat inwards, to spare his legs that burden.
You think he's crying somewhere under his matted bangs.
Fuck.
There's a reason you opted for self-isolation, okay? Emotional labor isn't your bag, and your strays-turned-pets like it better out here than the city you came from. You can be a guide, a waypoint, but you've never wanted any more responsibility than feeding a hungry Meowth.
This kid, he's lost too.
Your house was a station once.
"Stay here," you tell him. "I can see those bruises fixed."