Story depicts blood, language, in-depth discussion of suicide and depression, detailed interspecies sex and the lot, if you can't cope with any of that, you know where the door is

The Pokemon in this world are ANTHRO, 90% of what I do is anthro, that's it

Remember to find me on FurAffinity, Deviantart, Wattpad, P treon, Twitter and Discord

🍊Smell the Oranges 🍊

1

Cut

"The world doesn't care. But perhaps, with the right kind of company, it doesn't matter if it does or doesn't."

The belt didn't work. As soon as he secured it around his neck, tucked in the loop, and then hooked it to the ceiling fan, it snapped after only a minute, and he ate his bedroom floor.

For a while, after the first attempt, Mitchell was caught in a kind of ballistic stupor. It sure as shit felt like someone had damn near missed him with a bomb. There was a ringing upon the air that only he could hear, that and the pervasive, never-ending whispers of madness that this was never going to end.

Circles and circles. Round in circles.

He'd had enough.

So, after stewing and mewling on his bedroom floor, he bustled down the hall, and tried to use the kitchen knife. Both wrists, a quick drag and slash to sever the skin and open up the arteries. The young man spent probably forty five seconds watching the white-tile floor turn itself crimson before he started to cry.

Mitchell examined his own life whilst it sluggishly seeped from his ruined wrists. The blood was so thick and deep, that it actually looked black. And there was a lot of it. Mitchell didn't know he had that much blood in his body to begin with.

A hundred different voices in his mind screamed at him that everything he had just done was wrong, and impulsive, and selfish. But somewhere, through all that mishmash was a tiny speaker, one whose words were but a whisper that relented to him simply:

"Now it can end."

-And really- damning his family, damning his friends and his shallow life -that was really all he had ever wanted. Thusly, no. He did not try to bind the wounds. No, he did not call for help and he did not move. He watched himself bleed to death. And watching himself bleed to death felt almost satisfactory, for here was the chance to show the world how it had wronged him, and how it was its fault that he was like this, and how it was the cause and reason that he had done this to himself.

Fuck this place.

There wasn't even a point, and the floor wasn't feeling so bitterly cold anymore, like his heart. It was very wet and warm as the blood seeped into his sleep-pants and turned its gray cloth scabby brown.

"Now it can end. Now it can end. Now, it can-"

Mitchell didn't even realize it when he had passed out. The transition to darkness skipped his memory. He never recalled when exactly he had stopped staying awake, or when the front door to his house had been ripped clean from its hinges, and his ultimate goal was denied to him.

Flickerings of recollected scenes were the only survivors in the blurry mess of his head afterwards. The pale interior of what appeared to a vehicle, strangers in his home, a familiar, rotund and orange mass constantly staying glued to his flank and never leaving, like the signature of a creator marking every painting they made. It was always there, every time his opened his eyes, reaching out for him every time he descended back into the dark.

Later on, Mitchell woke up in a white room, with white windows, white chairs, and a white bed with very papery sheets. He was in a back-opened gown, his feet were bare, and- looking at his wrists -proved that it was because of….

Stitches. I.V probe.

Mitchell smiled.

It was not a grateful smile. As soon as he lowered his arm, the hospital cot creaking as he sank back into the pillows beneath him, his gaze became fixated on a familiar, immense and orange shape taking up most of the west wing of the room.

It was Saedi, his Pokemon friend, a Charizard with flushed orange eyes, trembling wings, and a great tail that was curled around her ankles solemnly.

The dragon's snout was puffy and red, and her face showed the results of what most likely was a full night, morning and early day of continuous crying. Her shoulders heaved the moment they made eye contact, and her mouth opened as she tried to say something.

"God damn it, you bitch."

Saedi jolted, like she had stuck one of her talons in an outlet. Her mouth was still agape, but all that was coming out was air.

After Mitchell spoke, he realized what he had said and felt the emotional chaos collapse upon him like a tumbling building. The young man went entirely blank as his lip quivered, and a single tear fled down the pale roundness of his cheek.

Saedi moved, the tortured chair under her immense backside creaking and voicing its complaints. She tried to say something again, but Mitchell beat her to it.

"Get out." He told her.

Saedi- for all her girth –was but a breeze in the room. The Charizard swept up from the chair, snatched her purse, and vanished through the doorframe, ducking and compressing her wings to manage the transition as she desperately bit down on her lower-chop to prevent herself making the sobs too loud. A startled man in a white coat and black shoes gasped and stepped from her path when she reached the door.

The doctor narrowly dodged getting run over, and turned to watch her in a bewildered fashion as she vanished outside into the hall. The window beside the door was too small for Mitchell to see where she went the moment she crossed the arch.

After that, just as quickly as she had arrived back into his life, she was gone again. The doctor's gaze lingered outside the frame for a good while. He used a finger to adjust the bridge of his glasses, and let the scene go with an ashen, low sigh under his breath as he stepped into the room.

"Mr. Hoems," He smiled as he crossed over to Mitchell's beside. He had green eyes behind those spectacles of his. They were so round and huge that he looked straight out of a Potter-Party bonanza. "I'm Doctor Elmreed, I've been responsible for your care since you were admitted."

Mitchell opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a tiny whistle.

The young man crumpled up under the sheets, like a dying insect curling into a ball.

"Mr. Hoems?" Elmreed asked.

"…A-Admitted?" Mitchell managed to dryly croak.

"Yes." Elmread said carefully, fingers drumming on a clipboard in his hands as he glanced past his glasses to read some details to himself. "You came in about three hours ago. You were picked up by an ambulance in your home, correct?"

"I don't remember." Mitchell found enough of his voice to sound competent but still dejected. Elmread's eyes flickered between him and the papers, before he continued speaking.

"Have you had memory trouble in the past?"

"No." Mitchell narrowed his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hoems, I just have standard questions I have to ask everyone." Elmread said with friendly intent. "You could've come in here with a splinter in your thumb, and I still would have the same list, so to speak."

Mitchell gave a dry hum to match the doctor's attempt at humor.

"…So," Elmread flattened the board to his lower belly, smiling down at him patiently. "-what the hell happened to you?"

Mitchell swallowed, feeling fresh agitation seep into his system from the doctor's zany efforts to connect with him.

"Which hospital did she bring me to?" Mitchell grumbled. He coughed, noticing for the first time that his throat was intensely dry. After a few wheezes, Elmreed quickly stepped over to a nearby sink and filled a little plastic cup with tap, offering it to him. "Thankyou."

"Of course. And you're in Rocksman Hospital, Mr. Hoems. It was the closest building in relation to your home."

"The one north of Middle Country?" Mitchell placed the cup on his bedside nightstand.

"The one and only." Elmreed nodded. "Your Charizard friend is the one who brought you in. She put in the call."

"I know." Mitchell mumbled solemnly, glancing down at his wrists. Medical dressings covered them, and they dully ached.

"Both of your wrists had been slashed open, and you had suffered considerable blood loss. We stitched you back up and have been providing continuous dosages of fluids. You also had to undergo a small transfusion, simply due to the severity of your injuries." Elmread explained, pointing to the I.V. erected by the bed. "I don't mean to sound rude, Mr. Hoems, but we weren't able to get much out of you when you came in through the ER. You were quite… off. Excuse me for saying: delirious."

"Mmhm." Mitchell rubbed a thumb tenderly down one of the bandages.

"Your Charizard friend-"

"Her name is Saedi." He glared up at the doctor. "Use her name."

"Of course." Elmreed smiled patiently. "Ms. Saedi also did not offer us much information. She did say that this wasn't your first visit to the hospital. I looked through our associate's records, but I would like to ask you personally about it. Is this true?"

"I don't know, you looked in the files, those don't lie, right?" Mitchell spat. "Hasn't everyone been to a hospital at least once?"

"Certainly, Mr. Hoems, but I'm speaking of the last three visits you've had recently."

"Define recently."

"Over the course of two years, give or take." Elmreed said. "Two instances aren't on record-"

"Because they weren't important." Mitchell shook his head.

"Ah, maybe just a slip on the floor. Perhaps?"

"None of your business."

"…A-hah." Elmreed shifted on his heels, mulling over his next words. His tongue clicked as he opened his mouth to speak again. "You almost died." He summarized.

"Yeah, and?" Mitchell chuffed. "Shit happens. You should know, given where you work."

"Well, given where I work," Elmreed smiled again. "it's my job to understand why someone comes into my care half bled-to-death."

"I had an accident." Mitchell said, fiddling under the papery sheets. Doctor Elmread blinked stupidly.

"An accident?" He quipped.

"Correct."

"Two very clear incisions made across the arterial underside of both wrists is not what I call an-"

"It was an accident. That is all I am telling you. Finish what you have to do and discharge me as soon as the procedures are done." The young man orchestrated it all like it was a meal he had ordered many times at a common eatery. A listed script. Elmreed had the tactical genius of a doornail, but he wasn't a fool. Those who had been around the bend had ways of coping with it after awhile. "State law says you can't hold me unless I'm a present danger to myself or anyone around me. I admit to nothing. I have no thoughts of self-harm or harming anyone else. You don't believe me? Pull up police records. I don't even have a speeding ticket."

"I figured that, you don't seem the type." Elmread frowned.

"Oh," Mitchell gave him a terrible and mean grin. "-you can read people, huh?"

"Not really." Elmread creased his lip. "What about you?"

"Stop trying to be my friend." Mitchell went back to rubbing his dressings.

"I don't want to be your friend, Mr. Hoems, I want to ensure that you don't end up somewhere dead, and that's just because I value humanitarian deceny." Doctor Elmreed cheerily corrected him. "So I'll ask again: cut the shit. We can both make this process a little less agonizing than it's already been."

"You want something to list as a cause?" Mitchell growled angrily. "You have your reason. It was a accident. My hands slipped while I was handling a cutting knife in my freaking kitchen, and that's it. Are you calling me a liar?"

"I'm not calling you anything, Mr. Hoems." Elmreed retained his composure, sounding lofty, calm. Mitchell resented him for it. "…Well, we still have some ways to go before we can talk about releasing you. How about I organize for you some references, and we can prevent accidents in the future?"

"Keep your references." Mitchell snapped. "Finish your tests, your fluid drips, and whatever else you have to do. I want to leave."

Elmreed looked defeated. He couldn't even muster a good response, and simply nodded. He looked down at his clipboard for a moment longer to find some excuse for standing there, and with a tired huff, the doctor spiraled around to trot back for the door.

"Oh, Mr. Hoems?" He stopped in the frame. "I realize you're probably far from being in the right mood, but you have more visitors. They're very concerned about your accident."

If the doctor had made one more insinuation, Mitchell would've probably stood up and punched him in the mouth. However, just as Saedi had done to Elmreed leaving the room, two older folk repeated almost flattening poor Elmreed in the doorframe coming in.

Shouldering past the doctor and storming across the room in a heartbeat, Mitchell's mother screamed at the top of her lungs, and promptly smacked her son across the face. Mitchell took it and said nothing, not even as Mrs. Hoems fell to her knees sobbing, and Mr. Hoems painfully crouched beside her, his very tired eyes locked somewhere in the midpoint between his wife and his son.

Mitchell let her have her moment. He let his father have it to. But he wouldn't let them believe that he was sorry. He was only sorry that it hadn't worked. The young man looked out the dark hospital room window, a contrast to all the bright white where everything there was dull and complete black. The highway netted through the forest below, populated with pairs of little Christmas-lights as cars zipped down the lanes.

The guests chair sat before the glass, empty, with two very large butt-prints working their ways out of the leather cushion. The smell of citrus was still consistent in the air too. It was almost as if Saedi was still here with him.

He wished she was.

[🍊]

Mr. Hoems didn't say much. He rarely ever did. It had been that way since Mitchell was small. His father wasn't a talker, and he certainly wasn't an understand-er either. Mitchell's brother thought he was evil.

And was he?

Perhaps, depending on who you asked obviously. Mitchell personally, didn't know how he would respond to someone who asked such a question. His dad was… his dad, and there wasn't much more to it.

He just didn't know whether that was good or bad anymore.

"Does everything fit?" Mr. Hoems asked, gesturing to Mitchell on the other side of the table. An untouched cup of coffee steamed just underneath his chin as he fiddled with his fingers.

Mitchell only nodded, chewing on his bagel like a starved cow. It tasted pretty decent, considering it came from a hospital café in the master lobby of Rocksman. It felt like nobody ever had anything good to say about Rocksman, both the place and the staff. They were generally regarded as only adequate boobs who could keep you from dying. Past that, just maybe they could save the limb. Maybe. And that was where all the shittalk started, especially online.

But apparently, their food wasn't as shitty as their service. It was just as adequate and made of the same strategy they used when approaching concern for their patients' wellbeing.

At least there was something the sons of bitches could list as an A-plus.

"What, did you guys stop at Walmart or something?" Mitchell sipped the last of his iced tea and ate the final bite of his bagel all in what appeared to be one motion. His father was too busy looking over the gray T-shirt and the sweats his son was now wearing to notice.

"I went out after we drove here. The doctors told us you didn't have any clothes because your sleepwear got soa-" His voice broke. "…You didn't have any clothes. I bought you some. It's better than the rags the nurses would pull out."

"Uh-huh." Mitchell tapped his fingers on the table, looking down at his lap. "I needed a new night-shirt anyways. All my others are for the day."

"Jesus, Mitchell." His father was developing a sob, but hacked it at the throat and silenced it. He instead opted to bite his knuckle and huff.

Mitchell scrutinized the old man with a disapproving gaze. Time hadn't been friendly to his father. Mr. Hoems Senior was a squalid, tanned, and gigantic wrinkle. Crowsfeet scattered around his eyes like the breaking surface of a pond of water, his once vibrant and big arms had degraded into thin, pathetic strips of bone hugged by skin. He'd lost weight dramatically over the last decade. So much so that Mitchell almost felt sorry for eating the bagel himself and not giving it to his dad instead.

Of course, that generosity vanished as soon as it had appeared. His father had it coming. It was the price he paid for not bothering to kick his alcoholism for most of his life.

In the backdrop, working behind one of the food counters was a Lucario who looked almost as miserable as Mitchell did. She had her head bowed as she texted away on her phone with her thumb. Hidden behind the register in the quarter-filled and quiet café, she could get away with it.

Honestly, he wasn't surprised by her lack of care for the few times his father had started getting emotional, what with the two of them sitting at one of the tables closest to the counter. She'd probably seen people drop dead in here, for all he knew, given where they were.

"Where's Rob?" Mitchell asked out of the blue. Robert was his younger brother.

"Not here." His father sighed again, wheezing. "He isn't here because I couldn't find him. And neither could your mother. He's just one son we already feel like we've lost."

"He lost himself." Mitchell shook his head. "I give Rob credit for not showing up. I know you at least had the decency to leave him a message. Or am I wrong?"

"This isn't about that." Mr. Hoems grit his teeth. A few nearby people started to glance at them. All visitors. That Lucario chick could've had a bomb thrown at her and she probably wouldn't even have blinked. Such was the results of the horrors of retail, he supposed… His dad made a visible effort to control his temper and started again. "Robert is a confused young man, and frankly, so are you."

"I'm just in shit's creek, dad. Rob's an asshole."

"Don't talk about him that way."

"Why not? What right do you have to tell me how to speak about him? You don't even know him."

Mr. Hoems' jaw flapped once. He couldn't speak and his own son scoffed him with a click of his tongue.

Yeah, no.

He definitely didn't feel bad about the bagel at all. His father was still unable to control his inner-douchebag that kept resurfacing.

"Here's the difference, dad; I hate Rob because he's a dick. You hate him because he's gay." Mitchell said. "I just wish for once, you'd come find me and find something else to talk about. And I wish mom would stop running the fuck away."

His mother wasn't even in the hospital anymore. She'd screamed at him, cried, told him how much she loved him, and then… she left. Like she always did whenever stress levels were high and the cruel face of reality was rearing its ass-ugly mug.

She'd left when Robert had that fight with dad. She'd left when Mitchell had had his fight with dad. She was a runner. Mitchell just didn't have the patience for it anymore.

"Thanks for the bagel." He stood up from the table and dusted his hands off. His father couldn't even look up at him. By god, had he gotten older too throughout all of this, forgetting the weight loss. They used to joke back in better days that he was so dark that he almost looked Hispanic. His father still had that complexion, just now it was etched with those wrinkles and deep set intrusions of grit. The exterior of his hazel eyes was cracked and his dusty brown hair was turning grey.

Mr. Hoems did nothing as his son walked out of the café, yanking at the sleeves of his shirt so that no one else would see the stitches.

[🍊]

Saedi had her snout on her wrist the whole drive. She didn't utter a peep, she just kept a paw on the wheel and focused on the road. The radio was turned off, and so the interior of the SUV was awash in a tender silence.

Mitchell stole glances at her every now and again but didn't feel confident enough to dive for the apology that was oh-so-needed here. He felt very small, and not just because she was driving one of those larger-statured Pokemon designed automobiles.

Truthfully, Saedi was like a soccer-mom when it came to the road. She kept an uncomfortably far distance from every car she came up on, drove like a ninety-year-old grandpa in his twilight years, and treated school speed zones like they were buffer points under the gaze of Christ or something. On top of that, she drove the perfect car for it all. A big ole' Ford. A Pokemon Ford. Friggin' truck was big enough to be classified as an armored vehicle in some Third-World countries. Wasn't it this model that Mexican Drug Cartels were running around in bolting .50's to the beds?

They hit a small bump, but it was enough to yank him out his thoughts. He looked over at Saedi again. The Charizardess looked positively drained and miserable. All the color from her face was gone, except for the pink flush on her snout and her cheeks from all the crying. Her buxom body- barely concealed in those tight-fit V-neck shirt and jeans –was curled in on itself, like it was a wilting flower. Her tailplane was minute in the rear seats as it snaked through the hole in the spine of her chair.

"I called you a bitch." Mitchell spoke, sounding unsure.

Saedi's eye flicked, considering him for a millisecond before gluing back onto the windshield. The Charizard slowly huffed, her narrow shoulders hefting and sagging.

"Yes, you did." She muttered, her usually frail voice now overtaken with grim resolve.

"Why did I do that?"

More importantly; who the fuck was he asking? He didn't know what else to say! This was all so much beyond just a simple apology. For who Saedi was to him? This was… this was madness. How dare he talk to her like that.

"I don't know why you did that." Saedi shrugged as if it had been some kind of petty accident, like he had bumped her in the side with his shoulder or something. Her lower jaw quivered. "But it hurt."

"I'm sorry." He mumbled.

"You better be."

She'd obviously come to some decision about something in all this mess. Mitchell guaranteed that the solution was going to be very painful for him.

Of course, Saedi would never hurt a fly. It was the possibility for something… something like what happened with Robert, that terrified him. Where did it honestly go from here? Who the hell knew.

This had all been so serene. Trying again and failing wasn't necessarily earth-shattering (it was for everyone but him, obviously) –but seeing his parents again? Jesus, it had been months, maybe a year or more. He had forgotten what they looked like, but he hadn't at the same time if that made sense.

And Saedi.

He hadn't seen her in a long time too, ever since she had moved out.

He tried to hide it as his eyes stung from daggering into the corner of his face. He didn't want her to see that he was looking at her.

As the amber lights of the highway passed overhead, her orange, scaly skin flared every few seconds with each post gone by. Her amber-colored eyes sparkled in the dark, but none of the light that they had had in her younger years was there anymore. It had been buried a long time ago, or at least dulled.

She smells like oranges.

Mitchell closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat, trying to drown out the last few hours with the crisp aroma the Charizard always gave off. Saedi was a citrus fiend. Her paws always smelled like oranges because she constantly snacked on them and clementines and grapefruits like they were going out of style. Her perfume that she used smelled like oranges, and the mascara she had on was dark orange in color. So was her lower lip's balm.

Adding in all of that to the little hoop-piercings lining down each of her scalp-fins, and in addition to smelling like a fruit basket, Saedi wasn't half bad to look at. Mitchell had always known that though. His Charizard was beautiful, she always had been, and he had always been a spoiled, miserable little shit for being so ungrateful about it.

They had met when Mitchell was in fifth grade and she was still a Charmander. Saedi had been the gym teachers' little assistant, and she worked for all the classes on towel-duty and equipment set up during meets. Mitchell volunteered to help out the gym teachers too after a few conversations with her. He was practically addicted to the reptile, especially after high school came around, and they had first had sex in the back of the bleachers outside the track rim when he was sixteen and she was eighteen.

That had happened before the crash he'd gone through after school. Four years graduated and what did he have to name for himself? Lots of grief, three hospital visits, and a lot of simmering crap.

Four hospital visits now. He really needed to stop trying to use belts.

"Mitchell, stop." Saedi's depressed voice quietly uttered out over the muffled growl of the engine. Mitchell glanced down at her lap and gasped when he realized he had kept a hand on her thigh for the last few minutes. "I don't… I don't think I'm ready for that anytime soon."

"Ready for what." –He stammered like a moron, retracting back in his own seat like a child discovered mid-scheme.

That was pretty kind of her to say it like that. Personally, Mitchell- if he was her –would've told himself he was out of his mind for even insinuating the possibility of anything happening after what he said to her.

God damn it, you bitch.

His own words echoed in his mind repeatedly and he couldn't get them to stop.

"I'm amazed they discharged me so early." He said aloud, trying to change the subject.

"I'm amazed they discharged you." Saedi said, her inhuman, draconic voice monotone. "I'm guessing you told them it was an accident."

"You didn't tell them it wasn't." He glanced at her.

"No." She lazily shook her head, expression tired. "What would be the point? You'd never accept treatment, they'd force you to stay there for a few days, transport you to a center, and then you'd stay there for a week or so, and then you'd come home and do it all over again."

"Would you have rather me go through their idea of help again? Locking someone in a ward with no windows for a week doesn't help anyone. Our system's corrupt as hell." He shot back.

"You're right, the way mental health is treated is lackluster." Saedi sighed. "Maybe this time we can talk about alternatives."

"Alternatives." He parroted. "I thought we were done with the pill-talks?"

For just a moment, like a thin wave of ocean water lapping against a shoreline, this pure and unadulterated flare of boundless rage passed over her draconic face. The leather on the wheel crinkled as her claws tightened on the grip, and the back of the SUV started to become daytime as the fire on the end of her tail grew to five times its normal size.

But then, Saedi twitched, and all the fury bled from her in an instant. She shivered, sighed out her nose as she shifted in her seat, and the fire in the back cooled.

"Mitchell, medication will help you." She said, after collecting herself. "We just need to figure out the right kind to give you, and the right amount. You need to give the medication a chance before just cutting it off."

"Medication doesn't do anything." Mitchell grumbled. "It's a waste of money and time and I won't do it."

"You need to let us help you."

"Us?"

"Your mother and father love you." Saedi held her nose up, trying to contain her emotions. "A-And I- … I want to help you more than anything. Don't you understand that?"

"Help? Fine, you can help me." Mitchell snapped. "How about dowsing me in some fire and letting the flames do the work for me next time?"

He grunted as an uncontrolled force shoved him into the interior of the car door. A sedan blared on their horn and flew around them as Saedi tore off the road, and drove over the highway's grass, nosing her SUV to the shoulder and yanking the stick to PARK. The moment she was no longer viable to causing an accident, she gripped her own face and sobbed. She produced a sound that was so pathetic. It couldn't possibly have come from someone so big and strong as her. The Charizard buried her face in her paws and heaved horribly, crying her heart out, ruining her mascara, raining silvery tears from between her talons.

Mitchell cried too. He cried because of everything that had happened. And he cried because his pain was not only his own, and he so easily forgot that.

"M-Mitchell," Saedi wailed, the larger Charizard leaned over the middle console and planted her snout into his side, hugging him, wedging his shoulder between those big, cream-colored tits he used to be so wild about. "-I love you~! I love you so much. Isn't that enough? What else do you want? Tell me! I'll do anything if you just stop this."

She pawed at him and constricted him, rocking the whole car, her citrusy smell overwhelming him as her warm, plush and scaly girth wolfed down the whole left side of his body.

"Please," She mewled. "I'll do a-anything…"

Mitchell held onto her tight. She was all he had left.

[🍊]