"Tommy can you hear me?
Can you feel me near you?"
—"Tommy Can You Hear Me?" from Tommy by The Who
The body was stiff and nearly motionless, only shaking and seizing every few minutes. To convince himself his friend still lived, Vince pressed a paw against him to feel the warmth. "You found him like this at school?"
"Yeah, collapsed, clutching his head," Alex confirmed.
Chris felt just as warm as he should, yet the warmth only reached the surface of Vincent's fur before cold guilt took over. "I'm so sorry," Vince squeaked.
On the walk over, Peter and Alex confirmed the situation with each other as if to ensure they at least shared in their insanity. A shockwave blasted its way across the town, engulfing it and showing no signs of stopping at the city's limits. Buildings morphed, changed, or disappeared completely, and plenty of people were missing, with more gone than remained.
Guilt consumed Vincent. Breaking the orb caused this. How many lives had he ruined, or eradicated completely? But worse than any vague pondering, his comatose friend lay in front of him. He fell back into a sitting position, tears making their way out of his eyes without any resistance.
Tears flowed out, immediately soaking the fur on his paws when he tried to wipe them away. So engulfed in grief, he didn't notice Peter scoop him up into a cradle, nor did he mind. In fact, he quite liked it. The compassionate touch, the warmth, the extra cloth his brother's shirt provided to soak up tears since his own paw's fur had quickly saturated. Peter caressed the back of his head, cooing, "What's wrong little guy?"
Vincent didn't even try to answer; not because he knew they wouldn't understand him, or because he was too preoccupied bawling, but because he didn't know what he would say. How could he admit to this? He knew for a fact anyone who knew he'd caused all this would have him cast out of society, abandoned, sent off into the wild like the animal he was. "Does it think he's dead?" Alex offered.
"I don't know, he seems a bit young to even have a concept of death. Still, I've never seen an animal brought to empathetic tears, the little guy's full of surprises."
"All these monsters are surprises," Alex cracked, tone bleeding disgust.
"Calm down. Some of them are dangerous, but he isn't. The little guy's harmless." Peter shifted Vincent into his left hand, using his right to feel Chris's forehead.
"Harmless? You had to tell it not to shock you!"
Peter offered only a glare in response, returning his attention to the crying mouse. "Come on, little guy, it's all right. He's okay, just… sleeping." For once, despite being loud and low as ever, Peter's voice soothed Vincent. Maybe it was because his humanity needed comforting, or maybe his body was growing used to humans, either way, it made his tears ebb away to occasional sniffles. Peter placed him softly back onto the bed. "Better?"
Vincent nodded, wiping away the few remaining tears with his hand. After one last glance up at his brother, he stumbled over to Chris. He couldn't help but notice his friend's head was larger than his entire body and chuckled despite himself. Chris used to poke fun at his height, so having it this exaggerated seemed all too fitting. Even though he'd always been hyper-sensitive, Chris could somehow make Vince laugh at himself.
Alex picked this moment of joy, however slight, to voice a painful, accusatory objection. "Are you sure it's safe for that thing to be so close?" Even though he kept his tone subdued, the words alone made Vince flinch. But since he couldn't voice any sort of defense for himself, he kept pawing at Chris.
At least Peter defended him. "Look at the little guy, does he really look violent?" Vince resented the little guy epithet but ignored it. He continued poring over his friend's face (Alex made no response), only seeing breathing's rise and fall. "He doesn't have any temperature, heartbeat seems normal, color seems fine, he looks fine."
"Well, he's clearly not!" Alex shouted, cracking Vincent's already fragile emotional state.
With growing desperation, Vince started pressing on Chris's cheek, trying to shake his head. "Please wake up. Please, please wake up." His pushing grew more frantic and his voice followed suit. "Wake up! Please! Please, please wake up!" Tears started leaking out again, and he almost screamed when his brother's hand yanked him back. But he didn't take his eyes off his friend.
"No! Stop that!" Vince didn't even acknowledge Peter's reprimanding, too focused on Chris's eyes. They'd opened.
He pointed frantically, shouting, "Look, look! He's awake! I woke him up!" as loud as his little lungs would let him. Wriggling out of his brother's grasp, he scurried over to Chris's blank, exhausted face, stumbling back to avoid Chris's hand rising to his head.
"Why's everyone so loud?" he grumbled, clutching his temples.
Alex dashed over, harshly brushing Vincent to the side to lean over his brother. "Chris, you okay? What's wrong, what happened?"
Chris answered with a loud groan and bringing another hand up to his head. "Please, can you keep it down?"
Vince managed to get back up with a burning anger toward Alex. If it weren't for his concern for Chris, he would have liked to enact some kind of (likely shock-based) revenge. "What do you mean?" Alex asked, "We're not being that loud?"
Chris winced, clutching his head tighter. "Please, I've got a splitting headache, and you three yelling doesn't help!" A confused silence cast over the room for two reasons. One, the only person shouting was Chris, but more importantly, three? Just to be completely sure, Vincent carefully counted everyone in the room. "Yes! Three! What don't you understand?" Chris emphatically shouted at the silence.
"Chris," Alex whispered tenderly as he could, "There's only two of us in here with you, and no one else is yelling."
Chris dropped his left hand to leer at Alex. "What are you talking about? There's you, Chris, and V-" He gestured aggressively at each of the three until he got to Vince and deflated, face shifting from anger to abject confusion. "Vince?" He sat up to hold his head in his hands, giving elation just enough time to consume Vince.
Chris knew, Chris knew! "Yeah! It's me!" he shouted, hopping up and down. Chris acknowledged him by looking up with eyes wide and mouth agape.
"You guys hear that, right?" He used one hand to point weakly at Vince, voice floating between terrified and confused. The other two boys finally gave Vince a glance, only to silently shake their heads and look back at Chris. "What do you mean, no? You seriously don't hear him talking?"
Peter scratched the back of his head. "I wouldn't really call it talking, Chris, and it definitely doesn't-"
"Yes, it does, it absolutely sounds like him!" Chris interrupted.
Alex stood up, leaning over to Peter and whispering, "Is he replying to stuff you haven't said yet?"
Despite being so quiet even Vince's massive ears barely picked it up, Chris still shook his head at the words. "Okay, first of all, no, I am definitely not, and second, how would I even do that?" How'd you even hear that? Vince thought to himself, getting a look from Chris. "Do you guys seriously—" he started before waving the thought away and focusing on Vince. "You, talk."
"T-talk?" he stuttered. No one had understood him all day, then someone finally asks him to speak and he had no idea what to say.
He'd just decided to blurt out the first words that came to mind when Chris interrupted. "No one else can understand you?" Vince's eyes popped open. He hadn't said that. He'd thought it. And Chris had heard it. Chris heard his thought. Chris could hear his thoughts. As if on cue, Chris's eyes mimicked Vince's. "Th-thought-you're thinking-thoughts?" he could barely get it out, bringing his hand back up to continue to rub his temple. "I can hear your thoughts, which just so happen to sound exactly like Vince's voice," he mumbled under his breath.
"That's me!" Vince cheered, hopping up and down, "They sound like me! I'm Vince!"
"Oh," Chris took a deep breath before a long sigh, "Even better."
Alex grabbed his shoulder lightly. "Who are you talking to?"
Chris turned to let his legs hang off the bed, taking a moment to convince himself of the situation as well as figure out how to convince the others. "Okay, so," he started, taking a deep breath, "I was talking to that," he pointed at Vince, "Because I can hear his thoughts, and he says he's Vince." Silence fell over the room, bewildered confusion in the air. "Yes, I recognize this sounds crazy, but considering there is a pokémon in my room, I think crazy's on the table. You two see the pichu, too, right?"
"Yeah, okay, yes," Peter answered. "Things are a bit ridiculous right now, but you can't honestly expect us to believe this." He forced an unconvincing chuckle. "Come on, you can hear his thoughts? What, are you psychic? Can you hear ours?"
Chris bit his lip, carefully considering his next move. Hesitantly, he answered, "I think so." Peter rubbed his eyes in response.
"Okay, let's start from the beginning." Peter took a deep breath before gesturing to Vince. "You think you can understand him, right?" Chris nodded. "Okay, well, we can check that pretty easily." He took a step to kneel in front of Vince. "Why don't you say something, he'll say what he thinks you said, and you nod if he's right, shake if he's wrong."
Vince nodded, "Okay!" barely able to keep himself from bouncing up and down. Finally! He could finally tell Peter! Everyone! "It's me! I'm Vince!"
Everyone looked expectantly at Chris. "He says he's Vince." Peter shook his head, smirking at the pure absurdity of the claim and froze the moment he saw Vince joyfully nodding. His face kept its smirk but lost all its color.
His mouth fell halfway down as if he'd tried to speak, but just stayed there. Vince's exuberance faltered, smile fading into worry. He took a step forward before Peter burst into loud laughter, making him stumble back, clutching his ears. "I get it! He means his name is Vince! He's not Vince, he just, it's just a coincidence." He leaned over Vince, waiting for an answer. "Right?"
Vince recoiled away, a mix of terrified and hurt. He had to wonder if Peter would accept this, accept him. Would he really never believe? Worse, the erratic behavior made him seem so much more threatening. He wanted to run away too much to answer. Peter reached to grab him, but Chris put his hand between them. "Calm down, you're scaring him."
After staring at Vince a few moments longer, he finally faced Chris. "That's Vince?" His voice was barely audible. When Chris nodded, he looked at Vince, desperation growing. "Vince?" The distress from his brother made Vince feel less afraid, but no more certain. He gave a hesitant nod, terrified of the response it would bring. But Peter didn't respond. At all. He just stood over Vince, frozen.
Chris grabbed his shoulder, giving it a shake. "Peter?" He shook again, placing his other hand on his chest. "Peter! You all right? Talk to me!"
Suddenly, he shot up out of Chris's grasp. "All right? Yeah, I'm fine!" he shouted, pacing around the room, "What's not all right? You're a psychic, people are disappearing, pokémon exist now and one of them happens to be my brother! Everything's f-" His rant stopped when he looked at Vince, who'd just about started to cry.
Vince had never seen his brother lose his cool, always staying calm; seeing Peter freak out like this scared him. And of course, he fronted all the blame himself. Peter couldn't be struggling to accept the altering of reality's very fabric, no, he was refusing to accept Vince. And why wouldn't he? How could he love a little yellow rat? But he saw his brother's gaze soften into regret, feeding off Vince's hurt.
After a second to let the shock pass, he knelt in front of Vince again, reaching forward with a wary hand. Even though he'd held Vince just moments ago, he seemed hesitant to touch him. One scratch on his head, and Peter ran his hand down, lightly clutching Vince's side. "H-how did this… what happened?"
Vince cradled his right arm, letting his eyes scan the ground. "I.." he tried speaking, but the rest got stuck in his throat. That they couldn't understand him for once felt like a blessing since he wouldn't have to admit his guilt.
"He uh… doesn't know," Chris translated, making the fur on Vince's back stand up. Chris could hear his thoughts. Chris knew. He froze for a moment before Chris rubbed his head. "Same as us, it just happened to him." Vince looked confusedly up to see Chris give a concerned wink. He fell back, unconsciously shaking his head. He hadn't realized it, but his legs had grown tired of standing. He tried rubbing away whatever suddenly made his eyes so heavy to no avail, head bobbing as he struggled to keep it up. "Vince, you all right? What's wrong?"
Peter chuckled, "Oh, he's fine," reaching his hand up to scratch behind Vince's neck. "Just tired."
"Tired?" Vince asked, yawning despite his attempt to suppress it. "I shouldn't be, I just…" but he trailed off, another yawn taking over. It hadn't been long since he'd woken up, why was he already tired? Shaking his head again, he tried to get rid of the drowsiness, but only succeeded in letting his ears flop down.
Another yawn forced its way out, and a hand started scratching at the scarf behind his neck, making him even drowsier. "You're cute when you're sleepy," Chris chuckled, lighting a fire in Vince. Cute? How dare he? He wasn't some adorable pet to be cooed about, he was a man! So filled with indignation, he had no choice but to roll over and fall into a very grumpy slumber, mumbling near inaudible gripes.
"Tommy can you see me?Can I help to cheer you?"
In his sleep, only darkness greeted him. It faded ever so slightly, and a voice came.
Vince, Vince! Is that you?
I… am, yes?
Finally! Why do you only listen to me here?
Listen? Do you talk?
Yeah! You're afraid of stuff you shouldn't be, but you like stuff that's scary, and you don't move right, and you try to eat weird things, and-
I don't-didn't know that was you. I couldn't hear you, I just felt… feelings, I feel how you feel. Are you conscious while I am?
Kind of? I can think and see and stuff, but I can't really move.
The darkness bore down on him once again, a new sense of guilt coming with it. I'm sorry. But he couldn't hear the faded voice's response.
"Oooh Tommy"
The sun's rays fell through the forest canopy, dim orange light sprinkling through the shadows on the floor. Ampaw had foraged early in the morning, eating as much as he could stomach before heading North. It had been days, and everyone told him not to, but he couldn't help it. He just couldn't accept his son was gone. He had to hope, even against everyone's advice. Hope was all he had. But as the light faded, he knew he'd need to rest for the night.
Climbing up a tree, he let himself think about the colony. While one of the stronger pikachu, he wasn't the strongest, and of course Volt was there, so they'd be able to protect themselves. Still, he couldn't help feeling guilty for leaving the watch. Someone would take his place. Hopefully he'd find a new place when he returned. As the light continued to fade, he fell into a troubled sleep.
