Jolted awake by the distinct feeling of her Protect bubble rupturing, Latias stared up at the body just inches above her in a panic. Michael bridged over her, both hands supporting him against the cave wall. She could smell tangy sweat and a hint of blood as he pushed off and resumed a kneeling position, breathing hard from some unknown exertion.
"Breaking that was a little more difficult than I thought," he said.
"Why are you here?" Her disorientation cleared only slowly.
"You were having a nightmare, I think." As he stood up he winced, and the scant traces of moonlight that reached inside the cave provided more than enough illumination for Latias to make out scrapes across his arms.
"You're hurt!"
"I fell a couple times trying to get here. That hardened sand isn't as sturdy as I thought, and finding this place in the dark with a working disguise was difficult."
Latias suppressed the urge to fuss over him. It was difficult to resist getting hands-on to check his injuries, but she'd been working on holding back such impulses over the last several days.
Michael fidgeted in the silence. "Whatever was going through your head, you put up a shield around yourself. I had to get through it, somehow. Fists were the obvious solution, sorry about that."
She blinked more mental haze away, still trying to wrap her head around his unexpected closeness. "How did you know?"
"Well," he looked to the ground and wiped his forehead, sweat visible even in the low light, "you were sort of screaming at me. Not even words, or even really sounds. Honestly, it was pretty scary. Do you remember anything from it?"
"I never remember my dreams. Sorry for disturbing you with them." She closed her eyes and tried to relax back into her bedding. Her emotion-sense told her Michael hadn't moved, and wasn't planning to.
"If you wouldn't mind, would you come back with me? I don't really want to leave you here, and I could use some help."
Her ears perked up, followed shortly by her head. "I… of course! Thank you for your concern."
"Don't worry about it. Come on, it's a little chilly out here."
The pair exited onto the beach, turning towards the small path that led around to the house's hill. With a clear view of moon and stars in a cloudless sky, Latias judged it to be several hours after midnight. "I hope I didn't wake you."
"Nah, I've been working for a while now. Tomorrow we're going to transfer some of the Pokémon Center's pokémon into the system as a test and emergency backup. I need to make sure everything is set. Really, it's not that much later a night than usual for me."
"You have plans with Cathy tomorrow too." Cathy, who can accompany him to a Pokémon Center without blowing some sort of cover.
"Yeah. Hasn't been on my mind much. I need to finish this tonight."
Latias said nothing more on that matter as they approached the front door, where Flufftail met them on the porch. Relief spread out from the fox, for both their sake. Latias wondered at him. Ever since she moved out, every appearance of hers brought the Ninetales some strange new joy. It seemed to her like Michael was just fine with her staying away, but his four-legged confidant wanted her to stay close, further undermining her resolve.
She paused in the doorway to the storage system room. Two fears warred in her mind; that of the machine, and of Michael telling her to leave if she requested he disable it. This battle of anxieties paralyzed her long enough for Michael to solve the problem himself. "You can come in now."
Drifting inside, she could see the scanner-poles once more laying on the ground. "Thank you."
"Figured that didn't change, you haven't given me a lot of time to help you with it." He bent over to pick up a tangled pile of cables by the last pole he laid down. "If you could work on untangling these, that'd be a huge help."
Latias took the bundle wordlessly and followed him behind a large rack full of bulky enclosed trays. She placed her task down beside it as he took position on the floor, with a small pile of already neatened cables next to him. As she started trying to untangle her much larger assortment, she watched him plug his cables between the trays and a large bar running down one side of the rack.
The pair worked in silence for some time as Michael worked through his pile and Latias learned to work around the clumsiness of her own claws. She watched as Michael's emotions gradually shifted from expectant to curious to uneasy, all concerning her. Does he grow tired of her presence even after he specifically requested it? At least when they worked on the house together he tolerated her.
"Why are you helping me?" he eventually asked, not looking away from his work.
"You asked." Latias carefully filtered her frustration at the question out of her response.
"Why did you agree though? You could find yourself in one if these if something happens to you."
The metallic rack in front of her reflected a rainbow of faint colors when she bristled at his hypothetical. "I hope you would free me."
Silence resumed as he pieced together how he'd go about such a thing in his mind. Apparently he wasn't willing to just yank out whatever pokéball she'd be trapped in and release her.
In the corner of the room near the computer rack, Flufftail warmed himself beside the massive cooling system's outflow vent, basking in a couple different varieties of contentment. The Ninetales didn't seem to mind the inside of a pokéball, the few times she had seen him emerge from one. Despite never wanting to experience it first-hand, she wondered what it was like.
Michael followed her gaze, and she felt his relief as he found something else to talk about. "Did I ever tell you how I got him?"
"No."
"I was working a late shift in the Center when Rangers brought in almost a dozen pokémon. Turns out they got a tip from the storage system admin, and raided a guy's house who had been breeding and training pokémon for some underground play-for-keeps ring. He was one of them. I already had the paperwork filled out, since I was thinking of getting a guard pokémon, and I decided I'd adopt one of that group. They were all in such bad shape I hoped I could give one a good home as soon as possible."
Flufftail met Latias' gaze when he looked up at them, apparently aware he became the subject of discussion. Another layer of satisfaction appeared in his emotions.
"I hope he's alright."
"Well, when I tried training him I found he gets a little… off. And he's always so scared after, like he made a terrible mistake by following my instructions. I have no idea what his last owner did to him, but it left a mark. I stopped trying to train him after the first couple times and finding out what he knew. I figured he could take care of himself if he ever had to, and I didn't want to make it worse. I got Sparkles not long after, and trained her up as a guardian instead."
"Is that a reason you want to do this?" Latias looked back to Michael. When he looked back at her with confusion, she tossed her head towards the rack they were assembling.
"I guess. It'd be nice to pay that back, you know? I could look for the same signs, help out other pokémon who need it. I'd probably have taken the job anyway, just for something to do, but it'd be a nice opportunity."
With her lack of response, conversation once more ceased. She neared the bottom of her pile now, cable-lengths stacked neatly in the space between her and Michael. He had already plugged in a dozen rows of the boxy trays, and was slowing as he worked through the last remaining rows on top. Eventually he sighed, put down the cable he was about to plug in, and looked at her.
"Look, I don't need to be able to read emotions to see you're upset. For the whole first week you were chatty and active. Now you hardly speak to me. Will you tell me what's wrong?"
She paused a moment, weighing how his anger would impact his quality of sleep. "You should go to bed, it's late and you have a busy day tomorrow. Show me what you're doing, I can finish this for you."
His building frustration inspired a sense of resignation; she would get her lecture anyway. Instead, it boiled away into resignation of his own. "How can I say no, when that's the most you've said to me all day? Come over here, this part is pretty easy."
She drifted close to him, enjoying the proximity but afraid to touch him. If she made physical contact, she felt her will to continue staying distant would vanish. A distraction appeared promptly; he brought up a mental diagram of the rack before them, and Latias had to flip back and forth between it and watching his actions as he indicated the connectors that their many short cables linked. "The only thing we need to do is plug everything in. I finished the rest of the job already, I just put this off because it's rather boring."
"It looks simple enough. Boring isn't a problem, as long as you dream up something entertaining for me."
She immediately regretted her comment when he turned to look at her. His emotions showed no sign of anger at her remark, but a good deal of confusion shot through his mild apathy to the current task, and a welcoming of her closeness. The latter gave her hope; maybe her greater distance lately was already having a positive effect. The growing silence itself only made her more uneasy, despite being able to clearly see how he felt.
Eventually he broke it. "Uh, alright, I guess. I'll check on this in the morning before I head out. Have a good night, Latias. I hope your nightmare doesn't return."
After he left the room, Latias let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. Dropping back down to floor-level, she grabbed several of the short cables and floated back up to the top of the rack. The connectors all looked the same, negating any obvious need to plug them in a certain way. She found the plugs slid in easy after the pins were lined up, and that a collar around the rim rotated to lock it in place. The staggered positioning of the sockets on the bars running up the sides allowed her easy access throughout the endeavor. The process was even simpler than she had expected.
Her emotional awareness told her Flufftail hadn't followed Michael to bed, a first in the time she'd known the pair. Instead, the fox moved across the room to watch her work, sitting roughly where she had hovered herself while untangling cords. Despite his complete lack of any emotion she could interpret as negative from any perspective, his presence still unnerved her. He represented the embodiment of everything she didn't understand about Michael.
After finishing her task, she soundlessly acknowledged Flufftail, and drifted out of the house. Even before she returned to her cave she knew sleep would not come to her soon. Being so totally awakened allowed the following period of activity to erase any remaining drowsiness. As she settled back onto her makeshift bed, she considered Michael's final request.
She had told him if they had problems they should talk it over. When presented with an opportunity tonight, she failed to do so. She'd have to make it right.
Despite their distance the past several days, their bond had not weakened, only slowed in its development. It was plenty wide enough for her to enter his dreams, and as the first time he slept while she was wide awake, now was the perfect opportunity. The worst case scenario was that she'd tire herself out and sleep soundly again. He wouldn't object to her presence if she was there to answer his question, would he?
Her self-justification thus secured, she settled into her bed and looked toward Michael's mind. Already he slept soundly, and she had expected nothing less from someone who worked himself so hard so consistently. Though he wasn't yet dreaming, she could gently coax his mind halfway between waking and snoozing.
Around her presence in his mind sprang a likeness of his machine room. Latias huffed to herself, half in irritation and half in amusement; she should have guessed he'd dream about work too. She regarded Michael's inert form standing in the middle of the room for a bit before she sent his mind a suggestion for new surroundings. Instead of the house's bedroom, however, she found herself in his boat's stateroom. Michael's form now sat atop the bed, unresponsive.
While she waited for his consciousness to occupy its dream-self, she pushed another suggestion into his head, and her body changed into that of Anne's. Within dreams she no longer wore an illusion, but a body that interacted with her surroundings as a human form would, complete with sensory feedback. Latias leaned against a wall and performed some stretches, feeling how Michael's mind provided sensations differently than Clayton's had. She felt a minor pang of disappointment when it could no better supply the feeling of running her hands through her long hair than the last, fingers providing a tactile response but scalp eerily numb.
Michael's head suddenly snapped around, startling her out of her adjustment routine when his consciousness finally occupied the space provided. "Why do you look like Anne?"
Dream sessions almost always started with a question, but that was one Latias had not expected. "I enjoy using this form here," she spoke naturally using her own voice.
"On the boat?" Michael looked around his stateroom.
"In dreams."
His eyes met hers again, "Are you you?" The dream-space provided the unspoken components of the awkward question as if he had said them plainly, "[If this is a dream, are you the real Latias or just part of my imagination?]"
"I'm real, though I'm not sure you'd receive any other response to that question even if I wasn't. I created a dream for the two of us in your head. You're still sleeping."
"Are you?" Michael asked as he stood from the bed.
"I'm awake. This wouldn't work if I wasn't."
"Huh." His one-word reply carried a great deal of additional information, "[That's disappointing and a little depressing, I can see that causing difficulties in the future.]"
His acceptance of the concept to the point of thinking ahead brought Latias a great deal of comfort. "Don't worry about it, we'll work something out if we get there."
"I'll take your word for it," he replied. "Your voice isn't coming from everywhere anymore."
"You noticed that?" She gave him an astonished look.
"Was I not supposed to? It's pretty obvious."
"No, but Clayton never did until I asked him about it." She had no idea what that meant. Nevertheless, before she could stop it, an optimistic part of her squirreled it away within a nugget of hope.
"So how does this work?" He opened the door to the short hallway, "Are you controlling my mind or something?"
"I wouldn't let you ask that question if I was. I just sent some recommendations to your sleeping brain. You're doing most of the work here, not me."
As if to prove her point, parts of the vessel's interior popped into existence as he navigated the hallway and walked up the stairs to the lounge. "We should have tried this sooner." The dream-context provided, "[Maybe it'd let you be less distant than you have been lately.]"
"That's why I'm here." Though her emotion-sense didn't work within this space, she still felt through their bond his relief and dismay, both stinging her. "You asked me a question before you went to bed. I should have answered."
"Before you told me to go to bed. Is it about Cathy? [Or the first date, and my reaction to how you acted?]"
Latias fidgeted in place while he took a seat on the lounge's L-shaped couch, only moving when he beckoned her over. Though she sat down next to him, she couldn't meet his questioning stare. "A little bit," she started hesitantly. "You told me I should act like I was just a pokémon. I come when called, I leave after I've helped. You allow me freedom so I allow you distance."
"I hope you haven't felt forced to help."
"No, I wanted to. I still want to. You said I had no obligation to you." She finally met his gaze as she smiled at her own joke before she made it, "I feel obligated to feel no obligation."
A smile of his own rewarded her. "Good! [I thought you were upset with me, but I was only seeing how you're working this out.] We'll have you living a normal life in no time." A whole spectrum of different meanings lay beneath his statement, from thankfulness that she was not angry at him, to concern she took his meaning too far.
Many were dangerous temptations, so she decided to respond only to his words. "I just need to adjust, wean myself off. Before, I hoped I could get my old life back, just with someone new. Now I know that's not how it's done. I need to get used to not being in the top spot, that's for Cathy."
A train of thought within his mind rapidly built steam during her final sentence, only to be derailed at her conclusion. "Not right away. There's a whole process to it, give it time. [I'm fucking it up again anyway.]"
The unspoken part of his statement paid her back in full, radically shifting her own thoughts from her intended reply. "Again?"
Latias felt the dream shift before she realized the boat had suddenly listed twenty degrees. The windows beside and behind her showed they now sat in the middle of an ocean, where even the gentlest swells could tax the vessel's stabilizers. She sent another suggestion to Michael's mind, and the water replaced itself with the much calmer surface of Manisees Bay, though the island itself was nowhere to be found in the night.
Michael looked around, noticing the change only when she made her alteration. "Did you put us here?"
"I have no idea where 'here' is."
"Strange. [I wasn't planning on taking you here.]"
She could feel his mood darkening, and gathered herself to take greater control of the dream at a moment's notice. Emotional extremes wreaked havoc on dreamscapes, and if this turned into a nightmare, she wanted to bail them out as quickly as possible. "Michael, what is this place? To me it's just the middle of the ocean. You brought us here."
"It can't be the ocean, it's too calm," he said, standing and walking towards the pilothouse stairs.
"I did that, I didn't like the motion. What's so special about the ocean?"
When she felt his emotions darken further, she picked up her pace, but when she reached the pilothouse entrance Michael already stood at the top of the steps. "Yeah, this is the place. [I don't like this place and I'm not ready to tell you about this place.]"
Less a suggestion this time than a command, Latias overwrote their location with another. The dreamscape did not transition smoothly after such forceful influence, and the pair found themselves immediately moved to their prior seats. The cabin slowly brightened to match the sunlight outside as her eyes adjusted to a light level shift that never happened, or the light itself realized it was supposed to be there.
Michael looked at her with concern, without any sign of the disorientation she felt. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I just pushed a little too hard there. I guess 'where were we' can wait until another time."
"We're near ho –" his lagging confusion finally caught up when he looked behind him and saw Manisees Island. "…Yeah. It can wait."
"What's wrong between you and Cathy? You've been visiting the café every morning, I thought it was already well on the way."
"To a solid relationship? Not that fast. This stuff doesn't exactly happen overnight," he said, finally looking back from the island. His expression, still spooked, provided an amusing flavor to the unspoken component of his reply, "[I guess you really haven't been in my mind much lately.]"
"Why don't you take her out on a boat trip, like you did me? You suggested it to help our bond, maybe it can help your bond with her too?" A twisted, uneasy confidence crept over her. As long as she supported the one he chose to be his true partner, she had to be fulfilling her role correctly, right?
"You're not going to hang over us this time, are you?"
"No!" Latias said, more forcefully than she had intended.
"Alright. I'll think about it. [This isn't really something I was planning on discussing with you. I need to keep you and it separated as far as possible.]"
Latias wished he were this candid in person. "I'll go then. I wanted to answer your earlier question, and it was nice to be back in one of these. Good night, Michael."
"Wait, before you go, am I going to remember this?"
"I can make sure you remember it perfectly, if you want."
"Please do!" Michael's face lit up. "It was nice being here with you."
She smiled back at him, feeling a surge of elation. A small degree of guilt followed. If she was trying to separate herself from him, she shouldn't get excited just because he enjoyed her company. She withdrew from his dream-space rather than reply. After tagging it to be shifted to his long-term memory, she gently pushed his consciousness under the twilight zone, back into the deep sleep she pulled it from. The dream world collapsed, and she returned to her own senses.
Despite being technically awake, during dream excursions her body always fell into a trance that lifted only slowly. Her senses had to adjust back to their usual feedback. Though now without a human's ultra-clear sense of touch, her own body's additional padding of feathers at least made her bedding even comfier. She focused on that feeling and relaxed, turning her attention inward as her perception of the outside world cleared.
Michael was right yet again; she should have done that much earlier. It felt good to actually wear a human form instead of a mere illusion of one, allowing her to enjoy an exercise she normally disliked. Once everything settled down, maybe Michael could help her make her own for use in his dreams, something Clayton refused.
More importantly, she felt she did a good job proving to him she could accept that Cathy would be a bigger part of his life than she. She was finally on the same page as him about where they stood, something that fresh retrospect showed should have happened sooner. She still regretted their situation, but she'd have to get over the distance eventually. He seemed satisfied just knowing she was working on it.
The moon's reflection off the water informed her not much time had passed, but she felt far more tired than when she returned. Again immersing herself in the plushy sensations of her composite furniture, she drifted off into a sleep far more restful than she had emerged.
"Come on in, let me just grab this package here." Michael collected the small box by the door he just pushed open. Cathy moved past him inside the house, and when he followed her inside, he deposited the package atop the bannister. He already knew what was inside, far different than the electronics components that had been arriving the last couple days. Its contents threatened to distract him from his guest.
"I replaced all the furniture over the past few days, and finished most of the major repairs." Michael turned his attention to his living room and its current occupant. "It'll be a really nice, comfy place when it's all fixed and dressed up."
"Nothing a few coats of paint can't fix, yeah," Cathy replied. "A lot of people thought this was going to become someone's summer home. It's nice to see it go to someone who'll look after it full-time."
Not that I was the first, he said within his own head. He still couldn't hear the signature echo of Latias' mind on the other side. She must still be asleep, he didn't put it past her to lie about the amount of effort the previous night took on her part. Aloud, he responded, "I hope I can give it the care it deserves. From what I've heard from Nola and others, I have some pretty big shoes to fill."
"You'll do just fine," Cathy said, smiling at him. "For all the odd-jobs Mr. Georges did around town, he never accomplished something as big as what you're taking on." Her smile faded a bit then. "Maybe in the future you won't have to mix work and personal time?"
Michael looked up at the ceiling, to where the computer system was on the floor above. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. There's just timetables involved and…" he looked at the package he just received.
Cathy too looked at the box. "Is that more work?"
"No it's… yeah. Yeah, more work. Get to a milestone on one thing and another's dropped on your doorstep, every time."
"I can get a tour of the place another time, then. Don't get lost in it, alright? I've been there, its bad news." Cathy put on another smile, but Michael could tell this one was forced.
"Hey before you go, let's settle that right now. I should be totally free the day after tomorrow. I could take you out on the boat for the day, you can show me the island from the water?"
Her smile warmed. "That sounds nice, sure. I'll see you tomorrow morning, same time?"
"Same time."
"I can always count on you to ruin my coffee, at least. Maybe this time you'll catch that guy who's been asking about your work." She stepped out the door and closed it halfway. "Just make sure nothing comes up, okay? I'd really like another day just to ourselves." She finished closing the door behind her, and he heard her footsteps as she descended the porch steps.
Michael didn't wait to hear her moped's engine starting, grabbing the box immediately and taking the stairs two at a time. He initially hoped to take advantage of Latias' slumber by showing Cathy around, but the pokémon's lack of mental presence was just as important for this next project. He didn't want her finding out before he had finished it.
Hopefully it'd resolve the recent distance between them, not that said distance had prevented him from dwelling on her. Last night allayed his fears that she'd leave, but something still felt very off about the whole thing. Either Latias wasn't telling him everything, or he was overlooking some aspect of her behavior.
In some ways the separation had been a blessing; he got a lot of work done both on the storage system and around the house, with varying degrees of her involvement. He'd been to the café many times unmolested, and last night he learned Latias hadn't even been reading any deeper than his surface thoughts on the matter. Still, he hoped he only had to worry about one of his new connections, instead of potentially losing both.
He sat back after removing the smaller boxes from within, each different than the last. Machines were simple. He knew exactly how he'd go about the project now in front of him, even though he hadn't even seen exactly what he was working with. People were more complicated. He'd hoped Cathy would understand his work habits, owning a business herself, but he still felt like he'd been screwing up every get-together they've had. Pokémon were absolute enigmas. Trying to read his Ninetales was bad enough, and instead of Latias' more human-like communication aiding him, it just seemed to make her even more confusing. If Mara were here, she'd be able to tell him what he was missing. Then again, if Mara were still here, Latias wouldn't have to stay hidden. He wouldn't have to keep his new mind-mate from the woman who desired his affections.
Of course, what would really happen if Mara were here was a long lecture on how he's letting his work get in the way of his friends and family. Work for a friend was okay though, wasn't it?
He examined the silver pocket watch that one of the smaller boxes produced. The timepiece itself was irreparably damaged, but he cared little for it. The shell mattered most, and it looked to be just big enough to fit the circuitry he needed. Another box produced a brand-new Ultra Ball. He used the tip of his knife to gently pry the black and yellow cover from the upper frame, exposing the components within. Analyzing them, he determined he could transplant the whole set without having to dismantle any. He judged he could complete this project in just two or three days, even accounting for all the other demands on his time, as long as Latias stayed asleep and allowed him to work in secret.
No time like the present to start it.
