Been playing video games for the whole afternoon, still no sign of Lawrence. I know it sounds a bit strange, but I'm worried about him. Especially since I didn't think his wing had healed yet. But, whatever happened, I couldn't do anything about it. Still didn't keep me from thinking about it, even making cars crash and wreck, in video games, obviously, wasn't taking my mind off of it. Sure was distracting my brothers, though, which made my mom a bit mad, since they were supposed to be doing their homework.

As I went to bed, I put on my headphones and tried to relax. When I wasn't playing video games, I'd listen to music if I needed to de-stress. Mostly video game music. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it. Even in my music, it's pretty much all video games. Slowly, after a couple of hours, I started to fall asleep, thinking I could get back into my daily routine tomorrow.

Getting woken up in the middle of the night by Lawrence proved just how wrong I was. "Psst, I say, wake up."

I groaned and slowly opened my eyes. I didn't just see Lawrence, but something else, yellow furred. "What the hell?" I said, quietly, but with obvious frustration in my voice. "Where have you been? And who's this?"

The yellow furred...it looked like a mouse, twitched its ear and sighed. "So much for the warm welcome."

I sighed and clutched my head. "Ah, dammit, you can talk, too."

He tilted his head...at least from the voice, I assume it was male. "You're the one talking to me."

I shook my head. "You can't expect me to be able to talk to both of you."

Lawrence gave a hmm. "Well, from what I hear, what you sound like seems to depend on who you're looking at. But, for the most part, we can understand each other. Like different dialects."

I groaned. Really? So, I could talk to all of these things? How did that happen? I don't have many answers, but it was something special about these things. I've never talked to dogs or cats or anything like that, so I'm not some sort of animal whisperer. Just a...what, 'Pokemon Whisperer'? Never mind, this was too weird, why am I even trying to make sense out of this? "Dammit...so, I'm some freak able to talk to all of you, then?" I then glared at Lawrence. "And this isn't some sort of Pokemon safehouse!"

"So, what, you're kicking me out or something?" the mouse said.

I sighed and looked down. "I didn't say that...look, just don't bring anything else in here. This place isn't safe. And you guys...especially you..." I looked at the new arrival. Yellow fur, red cheeks, black-tipped ears, brown furred lower tail, black back stripes. Definitely a pikachu. Though, he did look to have a couple scars on his face, along with a piece of one of his ears missing. Looked like he'd been through a few rough moments. "Keep out of sight. Lawrence could be able to get away with being seen, at least casually, he looks like a regular bird. Somewhat. But you...you don't look like anything else around here."

He looked away. "Yeah, don't remind me. Why do you think I wanted a place to hide? But Lawrence here said he found a place, so, I jumped at it."

Lawrence twitched his uninjured wing a little. "He's my friend, okay?"

I groaned and lied back down. "Just...don't let the word spread. Last thing I need is you guys flocking to a 'safe' place that really isn't all that safe. And I'm not even sure how I'm going to take care of you guys."

The pikachu chuckled a little. "Heh, some safe haven, Lawrence." he said jokingly.

Lawrence shook his head. "I never said anything of the sort. Just a safer place than where we were."

I glared at Lawrence again. "Well, it's my house. Hell, my parent's house...it's not even my house, and I never promised anything!"

The pikachu twitched his ear a little. "Oh, no. Hide, quick!" He went under the bed, Lawrence getting under the table. At first, I wondered what was going on, but then I heard footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. That pikachu had some good hearing. He at least had the common sense to hide, too, so maybe this wouldn't be as bad as I thought.

I heard someone slam on my door, obviously really irritated. "Hey! Whatever all that weird noise is, shut up!" My younger brother, Adam. That could be why he didn't just burst in. Me and him had a stockpile of blackmail material against each other, so we had a bit of a "mutual assured destruction" relationship going on. We don't rat each other out, and we don't pry too much into each other's business, because we could both pretty well destroy each other with what we already knew.

"All right, geez. You're going to wake everyone else up doing that, though, and Dad wouldn't be happy about that."

"Just be quiet so I can sleep. Some of us don't want to be a zombie during school!" he said before walking off.

Things were quiet for a moment, before the pikachu spoke up, quietly. "Heh, good to know I'm not the only one with a crazy, annoying family." he snickered a little. "At least I have electricity and they don't."

I growled a little. "Don't you even think about it!" I snapped back, still keeping my voice down.

"Come on, it was a joke. A joke!"

"You shock someone, and I don't have any control over what happens to you." I said. Great, now I have a pidgey who thinks he's some kind of cultured British gent and a smartass pikachu who jokes about hurting people. I could already tell things were going to get really fun, real fast. But, then, the pikachu wasn't the only smartass one. "Heh, hey, Lawrence. Looks like you have a playmate while I'm at school." I snickered a little.

Lawrence gave an irritated chirp. "A playmate? You make me sound like a little child."

The pikachu snickered. "You're still a pidgey, aren't you?"

"Shut the bloody hell up, Sparks. I just haven't grown yet."

"Sparks? Is that some kind of nickname?" I asked with a chuckle.

"You stay out of this!" the pikachu snapped back.

Ah, well, whatever. We were all tired. At least, I was. I started falling asleep pretty quickly. I think they might have quietly bickered for a little, but, I couldn't tell you. I was fast asleep pretty soon.