"But I would walk five-hundred miles
And I would walk five-hundred more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door"
—"I'm Gonna Be" from Sunshine on Leith by The Proclaimers
Ampaw poked around their burrow for a bit, rolling the few nuts, berries, bits of food he could find towards Short Circuit who lay half asleep on his back. "We're out of food," he mumbled, walking over to nuzzle Short Circuit. "I'm going to go get more, stay put while I'm gone."
"Why? I'm fine!" he protested, crossing his arms and doing his best to resist wincing as a paw grazed one of his scratches.
Ampaw's mouth pulled into half a smile, head shaking with the edge of a chuckle. "You haven't moved since you woke up." The boy's frown hardened. He opened his mouth to think up an objection but didn't manage a word before Ampaw pat his shoulder. "You just need some time to rest before you go out and walk around, you could hurt yourself more if you're not careful."
"But it's been so long! And I've already had a bunch of oran berries!" In an attempt to prove his point, he tried to sit up. Tried. He only got halfway before he grabbed his side and creaked back down, face twisting into a grimace.
With a whisper, Ampaw helped ease him back down. "I know you're bored, but you've just gotta be patient. Evolving's hard enough on your body, adding on such an intense fight only made it that much worse." With a long, strained exhale, he finally managed to peek his eyes open and look at Ampaw. Intense concern stared back at him. "Please, just wait for me to get back. You can have another oran berry, and I'll try to help you walk outside. Deal?"
As much as he wanted to fight it, that expression pierced right into his heart. "Fine," he grumbled, immediately engulfed into a hug, a tight squeeze that miraculously managed not to bring even a hint of pain. After the shock of it, a smile forced its way onto his mouth and he returned the hug, squeezing tight as he could manage.
"Thank you, I'll try to be quick." The two released at the same time, nuzzled each other, and Ampaw left Short Circuit to stare at the dirt ceiling. The same dirt ceiling. How many days had it been? Constantly falling in and out of sleep, only taking breaks to eat, he'd lost count. Count? he wondered to himself. That word, he couldn't remember where it'd come from; it had strange syllables he could barely recall, its meaning just as foreign.
Trying to remember only had the opposite effect, the syllables and meaning dissipating the more he tried to grasp them; like reaching for sand in water, stirring only dissolved it further. Failing to figure it out irked him, but he couldn't do much about it, so he just crossed his arms and twisted his mouth into a frown.
Back to being frustrated, he couldn't ignore how little he want to stay there. Sleep, wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, talk to Ampaw, sleep, wake up, eat, talk to Ampaw, sleep, Ampaw, eat, wake, sleep, Ampaw, the cycle had gotten so tiring, and now his only entertainment left to replenish the other distraction. He didn't have any stimulation but the dirt beneath him. "This is stupid, I'm fine!" he resolved. He'd had plenty of time to heal, and he was a pikachu now! He had chus to tell! Voltail! He had to tell Voltail! With newfound resolve, he rolled himself to the left and onto his paws. It hurt (a lot) and he had to groan (loudly, it was practically a scream), but he assured himself he was fine.
The moment his right forepaw touched the ground, he winced, shouted, clutched it with his left, and fell forward, a whole new slew of pain erupting as his body impacted the ground. "Ow, ow, owowow, ouch, ooow," he moaned, struggling to push himself back up with his left paw. Okay, so no right forepaw. Not a big deal, he could walk on his hindpaws. He ignored his aching body's protests and rolled back to a bipedal stance, ears grazing the top of the burrow.
A few tentative steps forward only hurt a little bit, not enough to really impede his movement. So, he cleared himself for travel and headed to the burrow's entrance. The opening proved too small to walk out bipedal, so he dropped down and limped his way out, letting out a loud "Ouch!" every time his paw touched the ground. He switched back to his hindpaws the first moment he could, clutching his throbbing paw.
His struggle and cries didn't go unnoticed either: several pikachu had stopped to stare at him. He clenched his jaw, eyes bouncing from each pair staring back at him. His throat suddenly felt a bit tight. What? He tried to ask, but only managed to open his mouth. One from the crowd finally approached him. "You're really hurt, what're you doing? Need help?"
"I'm okay," Short Circuit assured him in a very unconvincing mumble, "I just wanted to show my friend I evolved." The pikachu stood next to him, a bit taller, and gingerly placed an arm around him, easing some of the weight off. The surrounding crowd stopped staring, much to Short Circuit's relief, and continued their activities.
"You evolved, that's great!" he beamed, "But you're really hurt. You need rest."
Short Circuit shook his head. "N-no, it's okay! I'm okay!" He forced a smile at the pikachu as if that somehow proved his case.
Though weak evidence, it did get the pikachu to laugh at the exaggerated parody of a smile. "Well, if you're sure. I'm Bolt, who did you wanna go see?" The smile he'd forced stretched into a genuine one.
"I'm Short Circuit, I wanna go see Voltail!" he squeaked out excitedly.
"Oh, Voltail? She should be at the nursery, I'll help you get there."
"Thanks!" he beamed, and the two started walking over, Short Circuit leaning more on Bolt as the journey went on. He'd walked to the nursery plenty of times before, but it had never felt this long. Bolt noticed his pants and slowed the pace, trying to help him stabilize his breath, but Short Circuit kept panting. It hurt to breathe deeply, so he'd started taking quick, shallow breaths. When the two finally arrived, he had almost all his weight on Bolt and gasped between pants.
Bolt very carefully set him down, still holding a bit of his weight until his breath slowed considerably. "Think you'll be all right while I go get her?" Short Circuit nodded and Bolt steadily withdrew his support, watching for a moment once he'd fully let go to make sure the boy was stable before heading off.
It hurt to breathe. Even shallow breaths had gotten difficult. Sitting up got harder with each breath, too. Each exhale added a weight to his eyelids and pulled down on his back. He wanted to lie down, and even before he'd decided to, the sky filled his vision, back resting against the ground. Right as his eyes decided to close, he heard a far off, panicked voice shout, "Short Circuit!" and paws dash over to him.
Despite only hearing one voice, two faces popped into view above him. After a few blinks, he recognized both Bolt and Voltail, the latter reminding him of his excitement. "Voltail, look!" he shouted, barely registering her horrified expression, "I evolved!"
Not a hint of joy appeared on her face, eclipsed entirely by terror. She opened her mouth a few times before finally managing to speak. "Are you okay? What happened? When did you-" her voice seemed to fade out, the bombardment of questions too many to consider at once. He started staring blankly between her eyes, feeling his eyelids droop down until she shook him out of it, the motion causing jolts of pain to yank him away from slumber.
Her worried expression filled his vision, awaiting an answer, but he'd forgotten the question. Instead, he just smiled and repeated, "I evolved!" in his half-delirious state. She stopped looking at him, and while he could see her talking to someone else, he couldn't really make out her words. He felt like drifting off, but she'd already started helping him sit up, another chu pushing something into his paw. Looking down revealed an oran berry, which he stared at for a moment before Voltail started pushing the paw that held it up to his mouth.
The rind pressed against his lips for a while before he thought to open up and take a bite, letting his mouth rest against it until someone pulled it away, a paw taking its place to hold up his head. He took a few more bites and finished it off, suckling the remaining juices off the fur of his paw. It took a moment, but he slowly started registering Voltail's words again. "Better? How're you feeling? Are you okay?"
He nodded his head, vaguely beginning to realize he was sucking on his paw. Once he became cognizant enough to be self-conscious, he yanked it out of his mouth, a sheepish embarrassment preventing him from looking up. "I-uh, yeah. I'm okay."
She let out a sigh of relief at finally getting an answer out of him. "What happened?" She prodded at his shoulder, forcing him to look up. "You're in no shape to be out and about, you need to be resting!"
A smile found its way back onto his face, even despite the pain. "I wanted to show you I evolved!" he cheered, but she didn't share in his joy. Her lack of exuberance made his falter. "Aren't you excited?"
Incredulous, her head shook lightly, face plastered in worry. "How can I be excited? You're so-so," she looked him over before shaking her head, "Come on, we need to get you home." She started helping him up, waving Bolt over to join.
"Short Circuit?" a high, uncertain voice asked, so quiet he almost missed it. But he recognized it immediately. Looking up, he saw a certain pichu. Sparks. But that smug expression he'd always worn was gone, replaced by confused dejection. Short Circuit decided to wear it for him. "You evolved?"
The question alone filled him with pride, he couldn't wait to answer it. "Yep. Jealous?" After their weeks' worth of rivalry, Short Circuit couldn't help himself. Not even the deep sorrow enveloping the little pichu made his pride waver.
"No." The whisper, so low, was almost inaudible. So, Sparks repeated it. "No!" His face lit up with fury, sparks hopping off his cheeks. "You can't! You can't evolve before me!" he shouted. The rage didn't bother Short Circuit at all, in fact he reveled in it. He was just about to go for another retort when Sparks bolted forward, slamming into him before any of the pikachu could so much as voice a protest. He smashed Short Circuit to the ground, unloading shock after shock until Bolt threw him off.
Every inch of Short Circuit's body, every wound, every joint, erupted in pain. Feeling pools of warmth spread across his torso, he looked down to watch blood seeping into his fur. It hurt to hold up, so he let his head fall to the side. His fading vision centered on Bolt standing over Sparks.
He grabbed the pichu by the scruff of the neck, hoisting him up with one paw and raising the other. Short Circuit felt his breath hitch. He couldn't breathe at all. He couldn't feel, he couldn't think, he could barely see as he forced himself up despite the agony, paw screaming in agony every time it touched the ground in his dash over to Bolt. "Stop!" he shouted, vision completely black before he'd even collided with Bolt, consciousness gone before he hit the ground.
"When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be,
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you"
He could vaguely hear voices he thought he might recognize, felt paws hoist him up and carry him, but couldn't process any of it. Even the pain had faded to the back of his mind. But then, he felt someone else. He felt another's warmth against his own, his fur brushing against fur, breath that wasn't his own, arms wrapped around him.
His eyes winced open to see Voltail, dried tears streaked across her face. "Circ? You there?" He nodded drowsily, managing a smile that Voltail eagerly returned. "Good." She pulled away and helped him sit up, leaning him against the wall and then lightly scratching behind his ears before unleashing a mighty wallop upon his cranium. "What were you thinking?" He clutched his head and recoiled away from her shouts, but that didn't stop her tirade. "Look at you! How could you have thought walking around was a good idea? Why? Why would you do that?"
Eyes firmly planted on the ground, ears and tail drooping, he found his new paws significantly better equipped to twiddle, so he brought them down from his head and did so. "I thought you'd be excited," he mumbled. His sparse glances up showed her face didn't soften at all.
"Are you kidding me?" her voice bit his ears. "Of course I'm excited! All your hard work, training, all that effort, all those battles, and now you're a big, strong pikachu! I've never been prouder!" Despite her kind words, her voice remained caustic and scolding. She finally let out a sigh, letting concern replace her fury, which helped Short Circuit muster up the courage to look at her for longer than a glance. The patches of red scattered across her fur made him wince. She went over to nuzzle him then sat by his side. "I am excited, but I hate seeing you so hurt." She let her paw rest on his shoulder.
Once again unable to face her, he resumed fiddling with his paws. "Sorry." Her paw wrapped around his neck, yanking him into a (somewhat painful) hug. When she pulled away from it, he noticed she'd begun to smile.
"As long as you're okay now." She reached to her right and grabbed an oran berry from a pile Short Circuit only just realized was there and gave it to him.
"How many of these do I have to eat before I'm better?" he groaned. They got easier to eat once he evolved, but he'd still prefer an apple. He ate it anyway, if only for the pain relief. Once he'd choked it down, he let his head fall back and rest against the dirt behind him. One downside of the pain relief was it made him remember how hurt he was. Glancing down, he saw the same splotches of blood that had faded in the past few days made a return, and his right paw had swollen a fair bit more. It didn't take long for him to figure why. "Is Bolt okay?" he asked with a touch of guilt.
He must have been staring at his paw, or maybe she just noticed its swelling, because she started to cradle it gently. "Yeah, he's fine." Somehow, she managed to hold it without causing him any pain. "Why'd you tackle him?"
At the time, he hadn't given it any thought. He didn't know why he'd done it, but remembering the scene made him shake. "I didn't want Sparks to be… disciplined," he mumbled.
"What? But he tackled you!" She argued, a hint of bewilderment finding its way into her tone.
"I know." He pulled his paw back to its twin so he could nervously turn them over each other once more. "I guess it reminded me of when I was a pichu and I got disciplined. It…" he stopped turning his paws over, instead cradling the right. "It scared me." He shook his head in a weak attempt to dissipate the image lingering in his head.
Voltail tilted her head. "You're weird." The blood that rushed to his cheeks made him glad he'd gotten better at controlling electricity. "Why were you scared? Sparks was the one getting disciplined, not you."
Despite his close examination of it, the ground wouldn't give an answer. "I wasn't scared for me, I guess, I just…" with a shrug of his shoulders, he let out a frustrated sigh. "You're scared even though you're okay, it's me that's hurt."
She tousled his head-fur with a hint of a smirk. "Well yeah, but I like you, Circ. Sparks is a jerk."
He laughed despite himself, ears slightly perked at what she called him. "Circ?" he asked, partially to try the sound.
"Yeah, Circ." She tousled his fur a bit more, continuing the motion down his back until finally her paw rested on his opposite shoulder. "Your name's long, and you're not really short anymore," she chuckled, declaring the second half of her statement a joke. "Circ" thought silently about the nickname, making her furrow her brows. "Do you not like it?"
He tried it on his lips again, "Circ," and let a smile peel across his face. This time, he initiated the hug, twisting towards her gingerly as he could to avoid hurting himself as he wrapped his arms around her, throwing in a nuzzle during his approach. "I do, it's nice."
After one moment of surprise, she squeezed him tight, right on the edge between discomfort and pain. "Thanks! I'm glad!" A pained groan made its way out despite his best efforts, so she quickly released him with a gasped, "Sorry!" though her smile remained. "Are you okay?"
He had just opened his mouth to answer when an avalanche of fruits and nuts poured in from the burrow's entrance, followed shortly by Ampaw. "Hey, Short-" he started before his eyes came across the two chu, causing his face to undulate between confusion and terror, "Short Circuit!" He dashed over and began poring over his son, assessing the damage. "Are you okay? What happened? Why'd you start bleeding again?"
"I-uh, well, I just, uh," he stammered, stumbling over every attempt at beginning a sentence with the next. He couldn't tell Ampaw he'd disobeyed, especially after he'd promised to stay.
But Voltail could. "He came to the nursery to show me he'd evolved and got tackled by Sparks." Ampaw froze, a cold anger creeping just beneath his expression.
Since Ampaw stood between Circ and the ground, guilt had the boy look up to avoid facing him. "Short Circuit." He winced, looking over to Voltail for an out. She just shrugged with a half-smile, somehow finding amusement in watching him squirm. "Did you really leave? Even after you said you'd stay?"
Unable to face him still, he slouched over and started intently looking at his paws as he turned them over each other, guilty posture answering for him. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, flinching as Ampaw stood up, sputtering, "Sorry, sorry, sorry!" in anticipation of a blow that never came.
Instead, a paw lightly rested on his head, lightly ruffling his fur. "As long as you're okay. Maybe you'll listen to me next time." A light smirk adorned Ampaw's face, and he turned to Voltail. "Thanks for helping him and keeping him company. Feel free to visit whenever you can, I can tell he really likes you." His inflection on the last bit of that sentence embarrassed Circ, though he didn't know exactly why.
"Dad!" he whined, sending both of them into a fit of laughs. Their amusement left him fuming, anger and bashfulness coming seriously close to sending sparks off his cheeks.
The two finally recovered, calming down enough for Ampaw to say, "I think it's time you headed home. It's getting late, you wouldn't want to leave Volt waiting."
"Aw, I don't wanna," she whined, but got up anyway, immediately leaning over to hug Circ. After, she held a paw right in front of his face, so close it made his eyes cross, and kept it there. Holding. Holding. Holding, until he opened his mouth to speak and she tapped his nose just a touch too hard, shouting, "Stay!"
While he clutched his paws over his nose, fuming once again, she and Ampaw burst into another fit of laughter. Even though it hurt his nose, even though the order annoyed him, hearing her laugh made him smile, a laugh of his own on the edge of his throat.
Review Response:
MagicAngelo: Glad you're enjoying it so far! I put a lot of effort into conveying the emotions, so I'm glad that came through. I had Vince and the others react negatively to pichu for different reasons. Vince because it's kind of an insult to his own maturity, masculinity, so on, and his family, mother in particular, were afraid of him because even though its a cute mon, they're not used to the idea of pokémon in the real world in general. I figure most people would be afraid of pokémon if they were suddenly introduced to the real world.
As for wordiness, yeah, that's definitely something I struggle with a lot. It happens when I get too stuck in my head and try to put too much info into one sentence, or sometimes I feel like my sentences are too similar to each other, so I re-word them in a really obtuse way. But I'm trying to fix that, hope it comes through. Thanks for the review!
