Much apologies, I reread this and found that I skipped a huge part, so... yeah. Added it in, and now the other chapter's a decent length. Ah well, enjoy.
God, I'm retarded. :P
10 months later:
"Wake up, Will!"
The voice came to my eardrums like a creek flowing gently downstream, the voice's soft purr caressing my mind as I rolled over in my makeshift bed I had made for the night.
The voice belonging to Shade.
By this point, Shade was pretty much fluent in English, which delighted me to no end. After picking up on the phonetics, the vocabulary came easy to her, since we used real-life situations to help her build it up, rather than just teaching her by the book. While she still had a long ways to go if she ever wanted to speak as eloquently as someone such as myself (when I wanted to speak eloquently, that is), she could speak English in almost any situation.
I felt tired as a Snorlax today, though, and just laid there as Shade stood over me. Soon, I felt her licking my face, and I couldn't help but giggle a little bit as her tongue tickled my cheek. "Come on already!" she said, but I still just stayed there. That left her no choice but to use Plan C.
"Ow! All right, all right, I'm up!" I exclaimed, rubbing my stomach. I hated when she used Plan C... (Plan C simply being Shade digging her claws into my skin. Usually in the stomach area, which in addition to waking me up instantly sometimes gave me the dry heaves. Not fun, let me tell you.) Shade leapt away with a smug smile of satisfaction, finally having woken me, and I replied "Yeah yeah, I'll be ready in a minute."
I walked over to my bag and retrieved my other set of clothes (unlike Ash and his friends, I actually did have fashion, and a sense of individuality), then ducked behind a bush to change. As I pulled off my shirt, though, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the red irises of Shade looking right at me. I turned to her, and she pried her eyes away, too late.
"Can't a trainer have some privacy?" I joked, and she blushed, looking back at my topless self.
"Sorry, didn't know you were changing," she replied lamely, looking back in the other direction.
I finished changing without any disruption, and spent the morning reading a book I had just bought the other day, Shade looking over my shoulder and trying to comprehend it. Needless to say, she didn't do too well in that regard.
Finally, lunchtime arrived, and we ventured over to a little-known restaurant for the daily meal, our respective stomachs audibly growling like Houndours the entire way. It wasn't exactly a hole-in-the-wall dive, but it wasn't a 5-star restaurant either, if you know what I mean. When we walked in, it was completely empty, save for the employees and a young couple sitting up front, probably regulars, with a Farfetch'd next to the girl.
We were quickly seated by a stocky brunette lady who seemed to hate the fact that her job involved people, and she left us in a huff. Thankfully, she wouldn't be our server.
Shade opened the menu as soon as she got it, using the sickle-shaped scythe on the side of her head, and looked hard at the menu, the tiny words seeming to do pirouettes on the thin page that was poorly laminated. Finally, she managed to focus enough to find the dish she loved most for human food, and gleefully pointed it out to me: fish and chips. You probably could've figured that Absols like fish, but something about the way humans made it just made Shade love every bit of it.
"I'm guessing that's what you're getting, eh?" I asked with a smile.
She blinked her shining red eyes and retorted with "Well, what did you expect?"
"You know, I think I'll have that too. Been an age since I've had good fish..." I said to nobody in general, and she grinned ever so slightly at this. We gave the waitress our order after our drinks arrived (my lemonade and her Dr. Pupitar), and we both immediately took a sip of our drinks.
"So..." I started, trying not to be awkward and failing miserably, "how's life?"
"Great," she said simply, looking preoccupied. Her eyes darted around the small restaurant (which I'll now admit was basically a dive) like a Beedrill, a look of worry and anticipation in the gleaming pools of red called her irises.
"Care to elaborate?" I asked.
"Well, I'm an Absol who can talk like a human, who's a pretty strong battler, and my trainer is really cool. What's not to like?" she responded.
I took another sip of my lemonade, and pushed it away. "This drink," I said bluntly, and she laughed. The drink was way too sour, to the point of being just plain bitter, and that gave me a bad feeling about the fish.
We both remained silent until our food came, and thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
"How's your food?" I asked after she had taken a few bites.
"Not the best fish I've had, but not the worst," she replied softly, making sure nobody could hear. She took another bite of one of the pieces of fish on her plate, and I ate a fry.
"Everything okay over here?" the waitress asked in a sing-song tone that made me want to throw the fry I was holding at her face. Instead, I simply nodded, as did Shade, and she pranced off to the kitchen, hopefully to bug someone other than us.
Shade fidgeted in her seat a couple seconds later, and I looked over at her after being distracted by a man in black peering through the front window of the restaurant.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Will, I don't really know how to put this, but..." She trailed off at this last part, apparently unsure of what to say.
"...but what?" I inquired, leaning in. She looked worried, either that I'd take it the wrong way or that someone else would hear. She took a while to regain her composure, so I prodded her, saying "What? Don't leave me hanging like this..."
You know, it's funny how just two or three words can affect someone's life so much. There's "You win," there's the more depressing "Your mother's dead," and there's "I'm pregnant." Or, there's always the classic case...
"Will, I love you."
I raised an eyebrow. "I love you too, Shade...?"
"No, Will, I mean... ugh..."
"What?" I asked, sounding the slightest bit irritated.
"I mean, I love you, Will. Not just as a trainer, but... oh, I'm so bad at this!" she exclaimed, running out of the restaurant now with her eyes moist.
Acting quickly, I paid the bill, luckily having exact change on me (because there was no way I was tipping these people) and ran out, looking for any sign of Shade. I found her curled up by a tree behind the restaurant, and walked over to her.
"If you're going to sulk like this, at least don't do it behind this place," I said jokingly. She balled up tighter still, though, so I pried her open. With a defeated look in her eyes, she glanced up at me, her paws wet with tears with her eyes glistening like puddles with the water preparing to flow once more, as if her eyes were a dam about to be punctured by a wrecking ball. She looked so exposed, so submissive, with her underside facing up towards me the way I had grabbed her, but it wasn't to mean any harm to her.
"What's wrong, Shade?" I asked earnestly, and she hung her head.
"I just... I just can't tell you how I feel, Will. It's been stuck inside of me for so long, and now... I can't even tell you! I'm so pathetic!" She wailed that last sentence, and the dam had burst. I swiftly grabbed her in a hug to make sure she didn't run away again, and noticed the server from the restaurant walking out of the restaurant, wondering what was going on. I shot her a dirty look, and she returned it before storming back inside.
"Get... off...!" Shade yelled in a suppressed voice, struggling to break free of my grasp. I had a good grip on her, though, and she finally stopped flailing a couple seconds later. Good thing too, because, well, I wasn't wearing my cup.
"Okay, so let's start over. What were you saying?" I inquired, in a quiet, pleasant tone I hoped would coax her into telling me what she was to tell me. And oh man, did she tell me.
"Will, every time I wake up and see your face, it just makes me feel so happy, happy that I can spend another day with you!" she nearly blurted, her voice still held back by all the bodily crap building up in her throat as a by-product of her emotions. I stared at her, my expression blank, and she continued after clearing her throat. "I want to spend the rest of my life under your wing, Will. You've taught me so much, not just about the language I speak now, but life! I understand so much more about the world because of you, and for that, I'll always be grateful."
Her eyes bore into my own like a ravenous Mightyena would dig into its meal, and her words struck me like a shuriken through the heart.
My own pokemon was falling in love with me.
Now, I hadn't really thought about my feelings for Shade before, obviously, but now seemed like as good a time as ever.
I mean, she was amazing. Shade was a beast in battle, but was incredibly nice outside of it. She was funny, outgoing, and the smartest pokemon I'd ever seen. Plus, she was pretty cute...
But the fact was, she was a pokemon. And I was a human. Even if I did love her back, there was no way that we could actually be together, because that was so socially unacceptable that any rep I had built up would probably fall like a house of cards in a hurricane.
Right?
Anyone who knows me (at least on here) knows that I suck at conversation starting, and I'll often ask something like "How's life" to try (and usually fail) to get something going. Thus, the conversation at the restaurant while waiting for their food. I didn't originally have the restaurant being such a crappy little dive, but I thought it would be hilarious to edit it to make it just that (not to mention fun to write and add in detail). I really should've come up with some groan-inducing pun to name it. xD
Also, if you think Shade's dialogue is bland, just remember: she's an Absol who's still learning to speak English. She's not supposed to be Shakespeare with words. (Or, just to flatter and embarrass her, she ain't MouringShade either xD). Not like it matters all that much, because of what's coming next...
Hope for a quick update, 'cuz I am!
I really need a signout phrase...
For now, let's just go with ffgtfgtr out!
And yes, this does mean I am at my destination/home for the next month, so until the end of the month (when we drive back), I'll have roughly the same amount of free time as before, give or take.
One more thing: for the heck of it, I'm naming each chapter after a song. If you know who sings the song, kudos. You have good taste in music.
Ch. 1: Show Me How To Live (Audioslave)
Ch. 2: Sweet Emotion (Aerosmith)
