"It's not quite reality. It's like a totally filtered reality. It's like you can pretend everything's not quite the way it is."
- Josh, The Blair Witch Project
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon or The Blair Witch Project or a calendar that magically slows down the days and prevents these ridiculously long intervals between updates.
SOON BEGINS BEWITCHING
by Spruceton Spook
Chapter 8
"Filtered Reality"
No matter how fast they walked, Ash always seemed to be a hundred or two yards ahead of them. He had a real habit of pulling this stunt in hectic situations, they'd come to discover the hard way. If pokémon training never panned out, he could definitely have a fall-back future as a professional speed-walker.
After he'd fled from the house, the boy proceeded to take his flustered friends on quite the helter-skelter tour of the neighborhood. With Ash slaloming wildly down streets and across properties, around houses, trees, and fences, it had been hard to keep him within sight. But through it all, they'd certainly been able to track his voice. Ash's shouts for Pikachu were crisp and strident, so much so that Misty and Brock, when finally joining in, had even ceased their own calls; Ash was doing fine enough for the three of them.
At present, they found themselves skimming the outer edge of the woods, travelling down a relatively main road. The two hung back—though not entirely intentionally. Their voices had muted, but they remained vigilant. It was a little difficult to see clearly; the low-laying sun was casting directly into their eyes. The ground was still soggy from the previous day's deluge, and Misty's sneakers were coated with sticky fragments of dead leaves like papier-mâché. She was also finally warming up. Because of Ash's kamikaze departure, she hadn't had time to grab her jacket. Brock insisted on giving her his sweatshirt, and now he was the one presumably cold, the long-sleeved henley he was donning no match for the nippy autumn air. Misty thought so, at least. Because if Brock was cold, he gallantly wasn't admitting it.
In fact, Brock wasn't saying much of anything. He had been calling for Pikachu, but when he ceased that, he became totally quiet. He hadn't even grilled for particulars on what had happened between Ash and Jay. Impulsively, Misty had given him the bare-bone run-down, but it came in between bursts of calls for Pikachu and panting from trying to keep up with Ash. He must not have cared for any embellishment. Ash was more volatile than they had ever seen him, so perhaps a flare-up with his equally excitable father wasn't so much an unprecedented incident.
However, Misty was desperate for dialogue. She was still upset and high-strung from witnessing Ash go ballistic and her heart still hadn't calmed, no thanks in part to their hasty negotiation of the Pallet side streets. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't, no matter how foolish she felt or how hard she tried, erase the image of the mysterious rock piles from her mind's eye. It was all too much to process at once, and her composure was becoming difficult to maintain. Things were either collapsing around her or sweeping her into tailspins of overwhelming confusion. Shouldering it all silently and alone was starting to take its toll. None of this was about her, certainly, but she needed to talk it out with someone, and Ash was obviously not going to be the one to currently satisfy that.
She hadn't really held a real exchange with Ash since that rainy morning on the couch.
Brock's face was set stoically, but there was just enough of a meditative crease in his brow to reveal that he, too, wasn't all that untroubled. It was clear he was consumed with a cluster of thoughts, and Misty craved to know what they were.
"What are you thinking about?" she blurted.
He wasn't startled at her reticent voice breaking the silence; his eyes never strayed from their straight course and there wasn't the slightest hitch in his step. In fact, his expression didn't alter much, but Misty was studying him too intensely, too desperately, to not notice the subtle pinch of the line of his lips.
"…Nothing."
The delayed response was a lie, but Misty wasn't riled. It was frustrating, though. Whatever it was that was plaguing his mind was something he was hesitant to share with her. It was no secret she was treading on a mentally shaky foundation, but that didn't mean Brock had to be fragile with her. There was no need for shrouded thoughts in this terrible affair—especially between the two of them.
So she decided to tackle it directly. She folded her arms and turned her head away as she asked warily, "Do you think we're going to find Pikachu?"
Again, he didn't reply right away, and Misty wondered what lengths she'd have to go to to drag answers out of him. It soon dawned on her, though, that odds were he was just thinking carefully before each response. Gulping down her edginess, she focused her attention forward, where, dozens of yards away, the colorful blur that was Ash was still paving the way determinedly.
"Not like this we won't."
Her eyes widened as her head swung back to stare down the older teen. Such an abrupt, honest answer, one delivered with an undeniably bleak tone. Her heart started to pump faster, almost in defiance.
"What do you mean?"
Brock released a loud huff. "I mean we aren't going to find Pikachu this way. Running around all over Pallet Town, searching every square inch. It's crazy. Next we'll be looking under rocks."
Her speechlessness must have been a dead give-away of her alarm at his attitude, because again he sighed—only this time it was out of sadness, not cynicism.
"We did all this yesterday," he explained. "We looked in all the same places. If Pikachu was anywhere, we would have found him by now."
Misty vacillated, trying to formulate what to say to balance out his painfully credible analysis. "He could still be somewhere..."
"No," Brock shook his head. He still hadn't met her penetrating gaze as they walked steadily on. "I don't think so. Nowhere around here, at least. Look at how far we are from the house. It was so bad yesterday—you know Pikachu wouldn't have wandered off in that. Why would he? Why would he come all the way out here in that awful weather?"
"I don't know," Misty answered quietly. "I guess he wouldn't..."
"No, he wouldn't." Brock took yet another very audible, deep breath, which really unsettled Misty. He sounded so flustered. She'd wanted to know what he felt, and now that she found out—like a swift blow to the head—it hardly made things better. It was reassurance she'd naively sought, and receiving the opposite did nothing to soothe her fidgety nerves.
"I'm afraid we're wasting our time," he said somberly.
That conclusion made Misty shudder. Wasting their time? What did he mean by that? Brock couldn't possibly be indicating that their search was useless, that it was better off terminated. No—no, of course he wasn't! He knew the importance of finding Pikachu—not just for the mouse's sake, of course, but for Ash's. How in the world would he even remotely entertain the thought of giving up on trying to find one of the most valued members of their pokémon team—and his best friend's dearly-loved companion? That wasn't Brock at all.
But it still didn't expunge what he'd just said. Was he just speaking mindlessly, letting his anxious feelings draw out words he didn't mean? The only time gibberish ever hailed from Brock was when an attractive female was in the vicinity. Otherwise, everything he relayed stemmed from sound consideration and practicality—traits inherent of him, cultivated by years of dealing with younger kids.
It was that consistency of his nature that truly frightened Misty that, indeed, there was legality to be found in his words.
"So...how are we gonna find him, then?" she tested apprehensively.
One thing she hadn't anticipated from that follow-up was Brock coming to a sudden halt. Misty was no match for her pace, uncontrollably flying on past him a few steps. She managed to catch herself gracelessly and skid to a stop, but her unease conversely went haywire. Her head yo-yoed between Brock and Ash, her heart racing in panic at her boyfriend's retreating form up the road. They were going to lose him for good now.
"I don't know, Misty," Brock said, seeming totally unconcerned about the massive expanse Ash was going to put between them as a result of his sojourn. "I..." He glanced off to the distance, gnawing at his bottom lip.
The cagey snag in his voice promptly redirected Misty's focus. "What?"
"...I'm not so sure we are going to find him," he finished sadly, barely above a whisper.
Brock's broadside grim prediction was like a fiery projectile through Misty's gut.
"What?" The sound the escaped through her mouth was something of an amalgamation between a gasp and a shriek. "Why?"
"Because," Brock replied pointedly. Whether it was discomfort at her distress or regret from speaking so pessimistically, he still couldn't meet her eyes. "I said why. We wouldn't be out here right now. We would have found him already. Pikachu wouldn't do this. He wouldn't hide from us; he wouldn't run away. He would have heard us—would've heard Ash for sure! He would've come out. No way is he...is he in Pallet and not coming to us. Unless..." Brock dipped his head and kneaded at his eyes. "Unless he couldn't."
Unless he couldn't. It was those words that seized Misty, made her feel like she was going to promptly suffocate. She couldn't speak, couldn't articulate any kind of response to the dreadful image Brock was painting. Images, rather; too many awful scenarios could be derived from Brock's hopeless addendum, and all of them seemed to be colliding and exploding at once in Misty's mind.
"What do you think happened to him?" she asked nervously when achieving the nerve to do so.
After a ponderous pause, Brock raised his head to finally regard her. "I think someone might've taken him."
Misty stared at him for a moment, blue eyes blinking almost dumbly. "Oh," she uttered as she registered this. For some reason, her imagination had concocted a much more appalling outlook, and at first, Brock's answer actually granted relief. Taken? Well, okay. It was almost as if she hadn't considered that one at all—
Her eyes flew open in revelation. "Oh!"
Latching on even more to the positivity of Brock's speculation, Misty came alive as she put two-and-two welcomingly together. "Yeah. Yeah! That—that's what Ash was saying!" she cried, making Brock recoil. "H-he thinks someone might have found him yesterday and taken him out of the rain!"
It was the bright light she'd been grasping so badly for. Her feet began to dance, and she looked as though she was prepared to break into a dead sprint at the slightest signal. She stabbed her pointed finger excitedly in Ash's direction. "We should go and catch up with him! He said he was going to go to some houses and see if Pikachu was there! Let's go, too, and help him lo—"
"Misty." Despite her enthusiasm, all it took was a simple yet firm interjection from Brock to kill her rambling midstream. She'd tried not to notice that he hadn't been reacting much to her rush of optimism, but when it became very obvious from his sober look that Brock did not share her sentiment, the buoyancy perished from her face and the eager words dissolved on her tongue like ice cubes.
"That's not what I meant," he sighed. "I mean—it's possible!" he amended hastily. "I hope that's what happened! I hope Pikachu's in someone's house right now and we find him. I just..." He shrugged halfheartedly. "I don't think that's the case."
Misty was winded, her body overdriven with all of the emotions ricocheting within. "...Well...what, then?" Her voice was so small and helpless, almost exposing itself too fragile to accept what he had to offer next.
"...I think he was stolen, Misty."
A huge lump lodged in her throat. It could have been her heart—who knew. She'd felt it leap in her chest so violently she wouldn't have been shocked. Pikachu and stolen were always two words they feared occupying the same statement. Not to say they weren't used to it becoming reality often—more than several (dozen) times, sadly. Still, the idea always haunted them, posed a constant threat.
Another picture entered her head. This one was less stomach-turning than the others, but only somewhat.
"Stolen?" she echoed. "But—who? By who?"
Misty knew that was a stupid question. It just came automatically, a result of her unrelenting dismissal of these unthinkable theories. And sure enough, Brock nailed her with an incredulous look, stunned by what he saw as contrived ignorance. "Do you really need more than one guess?"
She didn't even need one guess, of course. It couldn't have been any clearer if he'd spelt it out with a buzzing, neon sign. But there was still something about it all that didn't make sense—that she refused to allow to make sense. Something glaringly unfathomable.
"B-but...they haven't been around!" she protested. "We haven't seen them here in Pallet for—for months! They haven't been bothering us!"
"Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't been here," Brock contended wisely. "You know that. Just because they didn't pop out and recite their motto everyday doesn't mean they weren't hiding out and spying on us, watching our every move. You can't put that past them."
"But...they haven't bothered us!" Misty repeated unconsciously, vehemently, not knowing how else to rebuff.
Brock seemed understanding of her reluctance to listen to reason. "I know," he conceded patiently. "But maybe—maybe they didn't want to. They could've had a different approach, who knows. Maybe they were just waiting around for the perfect opportunity to take Pikachu, and...and they got it.
"But you can't say they haven't been here just because we haven't seen them. They sure do always seem to know when we aren't here. How else could they know?"
"...Yeah...but..."
"I know it sucks, but you have to admit that it's possible, Misty."
She knew it was. Of course she did. There would be something seriously wrong with her if she truly thought otherwise. Misty knew her reasoning was judicious, too—after all, Team Rocket hadn't shown their contemptible faces to the kids in Pallet Town for what seemed like forever. Truth be told, it had been very effortless lately to forget all about them. The longer the layovers in Pallet lasted, the further they strayed from their minds. It was new and peculiar, but they stopped questioning it, and enjoyed the respite.
But Brock was hardly speaking drivel. The villains did seem to know the moment they left Pallet en route to a new destination, and that just couldn't be deemed a coincidence.
"But..." she started cautiously, hugging her arms around herself and bundling Brock's sweatshirt closer to her frame. She didn't really need it anymore, as she was breaking into a clammy sweat. "So what does that mean?"
"It means..." Brock gave a resigning shrug. "It means Team Rocket might very well be responsible for this."
"So then...then what are we doing?" Misty suddenly demanded, her voice reaching a crescendo with a new rush of hysteria. "I mean—we should be searching for them, then! Right? W-we should be going after them!"
"Yeah, but—"
Her arms flailed crazily. "If they have Pikachu, then we have to stop running around and we have to find them!"
"I know, but how are we going to do that?" Brock countered, his sharp voice rising above hers.
She froze, narrowing her eyes warily. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't know if that's going to be that easy!"
"Why? Sure it will!" she predicated heatedly. His challenging her was fraying her nerves, filling her with spontaneous anger on top of everything else. "W-we've tracked them down before! We can do it again! They've got to be around here somewhere!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Misty. They've had a while to get away now. Over a day."
"So?"
"So? So think about how far they might've gotten by now!"
Misty gawked at him, processing this. Her heart was beating so hard now she feared it was going to burst from her rib cage and bounce down the road like a kickball. There was Brock's common sense again, rearing its not-so-ugly head and tacking one realistic perspective after another on to this nightmare. She just couldn't readily accept everything he was suggesting, though. Just because Pikachu was missing 'x' amount of hours didn't mean what she feared he was implying. He wasn't clairvoyant! He didn't know!
"Misty." Brock spoke quietly, easing her out of the trance his blunt words had swallowed her into. He stepped in closer to her. Despite the concerned look he was giving her, she knew—just knew—that what he was about to say was something he dreaded having to declare just as much as she was dreading to hear it. Her eyes stung, the culmination of this terrible discussion finally starting to surmount the little bit of hope she'd been holding tightly onto in her heart.
"As much as I really hate to say it... If Team Rocket has Pikachu?" he said regretfully, "...then they're gone."
The menacing tears flooded unstoppably, and Misty reached up to swipe at the pools before they had a chance to descend from her eyes. "Oh, God," she choked. Her hands remained at her face, pressing at the bridge of her nose, almost as if she was holding herself upright in doing so.
Gone. They're gone.
"Hopefully they don't have him," Brock maintained softly. While out of sensitivity of her emotions, his moderate tone did nothing to soften the blow. He folded his arms and studied their surroundings wistfully. "But at this point, I just can't help fearing that that's exactly what happened."
Misty let her head hang, and her moist hands slid past her eyes and clawed into her knotty bangs. "What are we going to do?" she mumbled miserably.
"I don't know," Brock admitted. "We could try to track them down, but I wouldn't even know where to begin looking. I mean...if they took Pikachu sometime yesterday morning, then they've definitely had enough time to get away—at least get out of Pallet Town. What direction, though? Towards where? There could be tons of hideouts and bases for them to go, for all we know. They could be anywhere—anywhere."
Twenty-four hours. It was an indulgence of time for Team Rocket to put miles between them—the kids' misdirection an added benefit. Misty's empty stomach was rolling in queasiness. Jessie and James were fast—they knew how to make a quick getaway when it mattered. And that was when the kids were aware and hot on their trail. Who knew how far they would get with such an advantage?
"And the worst part?" Brock said. "Is that if they did do this, and we don't find them, soon...we'll probably never see them again. They'll make sure of it."
Misty couldn't take hearing much more. Even though there was no guarantee that Pikachu had been taken by Team Rocket, Brock's selling of the circumstances was making it seem all the more inarguably probable. And while their recovery record of Pikachu from Team Rocket heists was at a thankfully remarkable one-hundred percent, there was something frightfully discouraging about this particular episode.
Most of the time, Pikachu was snatched right before their eyes. They were able to retaliate immediately, and fortunately, Team Rocket always seemed ready and willing to put up a fight to protect their stolen prize. In a grand-scale tug-o-war, Misty and her friends were the stronger, smarter force. They always got him back.
But how the heck were they going to get him back if they inadvertently granted their adversaries a one-day head-start? A full day of doing exactly what Brock said—everything short of turning over stones, everything but following the lead they should have considered from the very beginning. And now, even after conceding to this, instead of doing all they could to pick up Team Rocket's scent, they were going to help Ash knock on a ton of strangers' doors?
Misty's heart jolted.
Ash.
"Ash!" she yelped, jerking Brock from his distraught daze.
"What—?"
"We have to tell him!" she cried, the whites of her eyes flaring. "We have to tell him this!"
"Mis—"
"He's going to go to a bunch of houses and knock on doors! That's going to take him forever, he's going to waste all day on that, and meanwhile Team Rocket could—th-they're gonna get further and further away!"
Brock, looking overwhelmed as she went to pieces for a second time, raised his unsteady hands in an attempt to subdue her, but her terror and impatience didn't allow for it.
"We have to tell him, Brock! We have to catch up to him and let him know! We're wasting time!"
"Mist—"
"We have to let him know!"
"Misty, HE DOES KNOW!"
Brock's unexpected roar slashed through her tirade forcefully, silencing her at once. Heaving, her face flushed and her hair blowing messily into her wild eyes, Misty gaped at him, aghast at his outburst.
"What?" she squeaked, begging him to repeat as if he hadn't blasted it intensely enough.
Brock's shoulders arched with a deep intake of breath. "Ash knows, Misty," he said again, elucidating each word.
Shaking her head back and forth, Misty needed a moment to reflect on this before spitting in frustration, "What? Wh-what do you mean, he knows?"
"He—" Brock attempted to reply, but Misty gave him not a chance, superseding him at once with her own contention.
"He doesn't know!" she screamed, her throat starting to feel raw and abraded. "No, no! He can't! I-if he did, he would be looking for them! He wouldn't be running around and going to people's houses and...and doing all this other stuff! How could you say he knows—he hasn't said anything! I didn't hear him mention Team Rocket once! He doesn't know, Brock! He can't! We have to tell him!"
"He does know!" Brock opposed tightly. "How could he not, Misty? He knows just like I know! Just like you knew!"
Just like you knew.
She had known, hadn't she? Oh, God...God.
"He just doesn't want to believe it," he justified expressly. His voice was powerful and frank, demanding she take hold of herself and listen.
"He's in denial," he went on, almost with a touch of condescension, though anyone who knew Brock closely would know it was only to get his point across to the panic-stricken girl. "He doesn't want to believe it, Misty, because...because he knows, just like you and me, that if Team Rocket got Pikachu, then this time—this time they're probably gone. They got out of here as fast as they could because they could.
"Right now...running all over town looking for Pikachu is just...it's just his way of coping, I think. It's easier for him to do everything he can to try to find Pikachu on his own, because he knows there's not much he can do if Team Rocket does have him. He's holding on to that last bit of hope that maybe Pikachu is here, that he can find him."
"H-how do you know this, Brock?" Misty asked numbly after a beat.
"Because I know him. He's stubborn and hard to get through, but he's not stupid. Maybe he didn't think it was Team Rocket right away yesterday morning, but somewhere along the line he's got to have figured it out. Pikachu just wouldn't be missing this long if it wasn't for something, or someone, having something to do with it."
With Ash tearing around town like a tornado, adamant that Pikachu had to be somewhere, it was hard to find truth in what Brock was saying. But little by little, as she, though reluctantly, took it all in, she did find herself believing it. Only because Ash was those things: impetuous, determined, fiercely optimistic...and not obtuse. Dense at times, maybe, but not enough to fail to factor in a highly-feasible cause for his pokémon's absence. Especially one that happened so ridiculously often.
So if that were the case, when was he finally going to accept that and act on it? It could definitely be too late by the time he came to his senses. Team Rocket wasn't going to stand around waiting for them to figure out what happened and then take flight. But maybe somewhere in Ash's crazed reasoning he envisioned just that. Maybe he didn't have the same conception of time (or lack thereof) that reality demanded. Or maybe he was, indeed, going too far out of his mind to even recognize what he was turning a blind eye to so riskily.
Misty felt her muscles tighten with purpose. It all came so quickly and certainly. That's where they came in. They needed to go and help him—immediately.
"We have to talk to him, Brock," said Misty. "We have to catch up to him, and—and get him to stop what he's doing so we can start looking for Team Rocket."
She swore Brock arched an eye like she was spewing crazy talk, but he quickly replaced it with a shake of his head. "Misty, even if I thought Team Rocket could be found at this point, I'm worried that's not going to go over as well as you think it will."
"Huh? Why not?"
"You saw how he was before! He's...he's lost it, Misty! I'm not so sure he's going to take too kindly to us getting in his way and telling him something he probably doesn't want to hear right now."
Was he joking? "So what!" Misty nearly shrieked, feeling her skin prickle with frenzy. "If we want to find Pikachu, we have to stop fooling around! This is stupid! He's not going to find him in anyone's house! He knows that!"
"Right now, I do think he thinks he's going to find him in someone's house," Brock objected. He then sighed. "I don't know, Misty... I... All I know is, he nearly took his dad's head off before. He's not doing good. The only thing that's probably keeping him going right now is the belief that he's going to find Pikachu on his own. And if we try to mess with that...we just might get more of what Jay got."
"I'm willing to take it," she declared.
"I know. And I know we should step in and get involved. All I'm saying is that I'm not so sure it's going to make any difference what we say. You know how Ash gets."
Misty felt her blood teeming with dissent. Maybe Brock wasn't sure he could get through to Ash, and maybe Brock was afraid to confront the explosive boy, but Misty knew it would be different with her. She knew Ash would listen to her, and if it meant taking on some brutal retaliation at first, then so be it. She could handle it—she had before. In the end, it all came down to Ash needing her. And her needing to be there for him. He required a lifeline more than ever, and she was intent to be that for him. Even if Pikachu couldn't be found, she refused to stand on the sidelines and witness him destroy himself in the process of finding that out the hard way.
"Well, I'm going after him," she announced, glaring at Brock resolutely. "And he can fight me all he wants, but someone has to set him straight."
Brock looked to still be wavering, but ultimately he abdicated. "All right, all right. I—I'm with you. We're in for a fight, though. Don't say I didn't warn you."
Misty nodded to concur, knowing he was completely right but thankful to have his support. Then, without another moment of delay, Misty launched into a spirited half-walk, half-jog, Brock alongside her in no more than a second.
"Not that this means we're going to find Pikachu," Brock said.
"I know," Misty acknowledged, feeling her heart pang at the reminder.
"I think part of the reason why I'm not so gung-ho about this is...is because part of me wants to believe it, too. That Pikachu is around here. That we will find him."
"...Maybe we will." Misty forced her voice to perk up slightly, trying desperately to compensate for the harsh actuality they were about to take on. Trying desperately not to give up completely, not yet.
"Yeah," Brock replied, though there was absolutely not a trace of confidence to extract from his voice, "maybe."
With each step, Misty could feel her legs twitching to take off into a full run to catch up with her boyfriend. It was a matter of time—seconds, really—until she gave into it. But just as she was about to seize Brock's arm and haul him along on her steadfast mission, the air was suddenly punctuated by the beeping of a car horn.
The two teens instantly froze and spun around at the disturbance, their eyes widening in shock to discover who was approaching slowly from behind.
"It's Jay," Misty gasped.
"What's he doing here?" Brock wondered.
They stood waiting as the car rolled to a stop beside them, wheels grating against the loose, wet gravel of the road. The window descended and revealed Jay, who flashed them a half-smile in greeting.
"Hey. You guys all right?" His voice was airy and concerned, a sharp contrast from the livid shouts they'd last heard him emitting.
Misty nodded faintly while Brock answered: "Yeah. We're fine."
Jay gestured up the road with a bob of his head. "He got away from you, huh?"
"Yeah. We were following for a while, but we just couldn't keep up with him."
"Know where he went?"
"He was ahead of us there a few minutes ago," informed Brock. "Not sure where he is now. We stopped here for a moment and kinda let him get away."
Jay exhaled noisily through his nose. "It's all right. He's only got two legs. Couldn't have gotten too far."
Wanna bet? Misty wanted to comment sardonically. It's only been less than an hour, and while the distance traveled from the house in a straight line didn't amount to much, she was sure they'd gone three times that in zigzags.
"You guys didn't eat, right?" Jay asked, narrowing an eye at them suspiciously.
Misty was jarred by the rapid change in subject. In only mere seconds, she'd surmised this encounter was all about finding Ash, catching up with Ash, helping Ash. It had been a while since someone had asked her something about herself.
"No," she replied almost bashfully.
"We didn't get a chance," Brock added.
With a knowing look, Jay gave a throw of his head again, only this time, it was in the opposite direction. "I figured. Why don't you go home, then," he said, a light command disguised as a suggestion. "Go grab some breakfast."
Go home? Misty anxiousness amplified with the appeal, and she exchanged an unsure glance with Brock. "But...what about Ash...?" she asked.
Jay dismissed it with a flick of his hand. "Don't worry about Ash," he offered. "Leave him to me. You guys should eat. You must be starving. And you look like you're cold," he told Brock.
"I'm fine," he insisted.
Misty was fed-up enough with his stubbornness that it diverted her from the matter at hand, and she couldn't check her impatient huff. "Oh, Brock, no, you aren't," she scoffed, only to be met with an admonishing frown from her friend over his shoulder.
Amused by Misty's short and snappy calling-out, a chuckle rumbled in Jay's throat. "All right, you guys, head on back. Really. I promised Mom I'd send you home. She's worried about all of you.
"You don't have to worry about Ash," he reassured. He must have been reading the lingering misgiving in their faces. "I'll track him down. I promise."
In spite of the fact that she was definitely feeling the effects of hunger (something that seemed to manifest only after she'd learned the layout of Ash's neighborhood twice over), Misty simply wasn't ready to put their mission on hold for a quick bite to eat, and certainly not because she was told to. Not this soon after Brock's eye-opener and her commitment to take action. The thought of just up and deserting Ash now, at this critical time, when he needed her most, seemed impractical—dishonorable.
"No, it's okay," she said, forcing a soft smile to mask her annoyance at being sent home. "I can eat later. I wanna come with you to find Ash."
Jay apparently had his mind set on how this was going to play out, however. "Misty," he shook his head. "Thanks, but please. Go. I got it from here. You'll see Ash in a little bit."
But with each passing second, Misty felt more besieged by distress. Of course, she couldn't blame Jay: he didn't know. He didn't know this wasn't just about rejoining Ash. What she and Brock had to relay to her addled boyfriend wasn't on Jay's agenda—at least, she didn't think it was. Her desire to put up a fight with the man simmered within her, objection held fast behind clenched teeth. She wasn't sure what would result. It wasn't the first time she'd pleaded to accompany Jay on a mission to find Ash, and then, her request had also been denied. That incident had been something Jay had to personally sort out, but that wasn't the case this time around.
Unbeknownst to her, Jay must have recognized the telling indecision in her demeanor. Ash had spoken about this before, how his father could read anyone like a child's picture book, especially when the wheels in one's head were spinning in opposition, and that was what seemed to be unfolding now.
Sure enough: "Are you sure you guys are all right?" There was that doubtful sideways glimpse again. "You want a ride back home?"
"N-no, it's not that! We want to..." she trailed off, doing her best to gulp down her exasperation. Honestly, was explaining it just going to be futile? Should she just take a page from Ash's book and bolt?
"We were just going to catch up with Ash because we...have to talk to him," Brock picked up helpfully. "We need to tell him something."
"Tell him what? I can pass it on," Jay replied.
"No, it's—w-we think we know what happened to Pikachu."
Jay's eyes widened considerably, his attention held. "You do?"
"Yeah, but we...we're not sure if Ash's...completely realized it," Brock explained.
"Which is why we want to get to him right away!" Misty chimed in, the urgency racing through her veins discharging the words compulsively.
"What is it?" Jay demanded, excited and edgy.
"Team Rocket," Brock supplied hastily, as if he was trying to make up for unintentionally beating around the bush.
Pausing for a moment, Jay eyed Brock. "You serious?"
Despondently, Misty and Brock nodded.
"You mean those idiots I threw off my property, like, two years ago?"
Threw off was quite the understatement, but again, the two kids nodded.
"But I haven't seen them since then! Really, you sure?"
"We aren't sure," Brock said. "But it's our gut-feeling."
"Brock thinks that if Pikachu was just wandering around Pallet, we would've found him by now," clarified Misty.
Jay's head dipped, and his fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel. He fixed them both with a dreary look of accord. "I gotta admit...I was thinking the same thing," he admitted quietly. Misty felt her innards tighten. "Especially after last night, when we didn't find Pikachu, I started to feel really doubtful about the whole thing.
"I never considered Team Rocket, though," he shrugged. "Then again, I really don't know all that much about them. I only hear stories from you guys. What makes you think it was them? I mean, I know they bug you on a regular basis, but I don't remember you mentioning them having Pikachu for long."
"They usually don't," Brock replied. "Usually, they take him right from Ash and think they can get away by sending out their pokémon to fight us off. But we seem to get 'im back pretty quickly most of the time."
Jay smacked his lips contemplatively. "Different scenario this time."
"Yeah. Very different."
"Hate to say it," Jay winced, "but it was probably just a matter of time before they learned from all their botched attempts and tried something new."
"Yeah," Brock recognized forlornly. "What we're really afraid of is if they spent the last day on the run, how far they could've gotten."
Jay blanched. "Have any idea where they'd go?"
"...No."
"Dammit," he groused, dragging a hand across his mouth and gazing sullenly down the road. It looked as though he, too, wasn't sure how to process the news, and that made Misty even more ill at ease. Seeking assurance from Brock hadn't panned out well, and now it looked as though she wasn't going to get any from Ash's dad, either. Hopelessness piled atop more hopelessness.
"So we want to catch up with Ash and...and tell him this," Brock said. "We feel he's wasting time doing what he's doing. I kinda think he's already figured it out, but...he's definitely not acting like he is."
"You think he could be ignoring the facts," Jay said matter-of-factly, hitting the nail on the head.
"Maybe." Brock sighed. "I know it's what we have to do. I just...hate to be the bearer of bad news," he lamented.
"Well, if you're right, and he knows already, then really, you're not," Misty pointed out.
"He doesn't have to worry either way," Jay said, his voice suddenly mounting with intention. "I'll be the one to tell him."
As if obligated, Brock hastened to demur: "It's okay—"
"No, it's fine," Jay insisted, holding a hand up gently. "Look, you guys did a lot for Ash today already. Running all over creation, following him out here. It's not even eight o'clock yet—or maybe it is. I don't know. Just...you guys need to take a break. Please—go home, let me find him and talk to him. Maybe he has figured it out by now. Who knows? I'll find out. If he doesn't know, well, he already hates me, so... It's okay. You can come back out later if we're gonna continue this."
If we're gonna continue this... Misty still couldn't handle all these depressing remarks. Or that it still looked like she had no choice but to return home, leaving the important task of easing a very fragile Ash into a state of acceptance and recourse by the one member of their household he probably least desired to see. It was kind of Jay to take this difficult matter upon himself, but it was Ash she was most concerned about—not herself. She wanted to make sure he was okay.
Yet, it seemed she was simply and helplessly drawing out the inevitable, because she knew her argument was headed nowhere. Brock was aware of this, too; she could sense it through his attitude. And so, taking advantage of their contemplative interlude of silence, Jay graced them with one final cheerless smile, and his window began to ascend.
"Go home, kids," he bid one more time before the window shut completely, ending the conversation decisively. Misty and Brock said not a word as he took off at once, leaving them in a cloud of exhaust.
For a moment, neither moved a muscle, still in doubt of what action to take next—Misty especially. She stood dazedly in the midst of what just transpired, her concern for Ash's wellbeing soaring in her afflicted heart. She knew, of course, that Jay would take good care of him, but it still didn't feel right. She ought to be going to him. Her relationship with Ash had certainly clashed with his parents' still very-active involvement on a number of occasions, but never before did it anguish her to this extent. It was becoming harder and harder to relinquish control of Ash's affairs as each day passed and her bond with her best friend strengthened increasingly, and this situation above all others made her feel so terribly and distraughtly incapable.
"Misty, c'mon," Brock said softly. She could feel him leaving her side, evidently giving way to Jay's request. "Let's go."
Her mind knew to comply, but her feet still wouldn't budge and her gaze refused to deflect from the wake of Jay's car, from the course her heart knew she should be taking.
"He's going to be okay," he added.
Whether deliberately adjusting his voice to coax her out of her state or truly confident that all was going to be fine without their immediate involvement, she found herself taking his words at face value. Or grasping desperately onto them—either way. She had no other choice, right? It was done, wasn't it? There was no way she was going to catch up to Jay. There was really nothing more she could do...short of praying.
"I mean...I do kinda want to eat, especially if we're going to be at this again later." Then, with a hint of restrained laughter in his voice: "And...I really could use a jacket."
A rogue smile flashed across Misty's face of despair. She couldn't help it. She turned to Brock and was met with an admitting shrug and a small, sad smile, one that begged her to let it go but didn't fail to acknowledge that none of this was quite over yet. It was a gesture Misty appreciated. Knowing Brock wasn't ready to give up was a tiny comfort atop all the torment, one she embraced as she finally submitted to his urging and began to trail him back to the house.
As current practice, they descended into quietness as they walked. Only this time, Misty felt no desire to talk.
Sad to say, the outskirts of Pallet's wooded areas were yielding no results. Ash had a feeling that was going to be the case, though. He was basically retracing similar steps he'd taken the day before, and just like yesterday, the squelchy, dark coppice barely revealed an active creature, much less Pikachu in…the state Ash expected to find him in.
What state that was going to be, exactly, remained the dismaying mystery.
He was hurrying along the road that ran parallel to the perimeter of woods, his legs aching from the rough pace he was inflicting on them. At present, it was the best way he could search the forest without actually penetrating it, as it was still a rather impassable bog as a result of the storm. Even the road, which was mostly paved, was spotted with standing puddles and sticky mud patches, a tricky obstacle course. The overall conditions were far improved, but he was nevertheless limited, and he hated it.
He'd lost Misty and Brock ages ago. He knew they were behind him not long after he'd dashed from his house; they'd called and called for him to wait up, but the last thing he wanted to do was perpetuate that ugly episode. That was over, done, and he was putting it behind him, both mentally and in yardage. He purposely maintained his velocity, never running from them but not exactly giving them the opportunity to catch up, either. After a while, their calls for him morphed into calls for Pikachu, and relief quickly washed over him. They did realize after all what was important, and it wasn't him or his dad or those bogus piles of rocks that had turned up on the front lawn.
He appreciated their support, but it didn't shorten his rate. They'd catch up.
Or not.
After a while, Ash stopped throwing glances back to see where they were. His determination did not allow a moment for diversion.
But while dogged in his search, he still felt largely overwhelmed. There were so many places he needed to look, so many people he could talk to, so many theories to probe. He honestly didn't know where to begin. The weather had posed such a terrible hindrance the day before. Being knocked off his feet and beaten back by blustering winds—when he was actually able to get outside—had hardly been conducive to a proper search. But now, the beautiful day was almost daunting. He felt like an excitable pokémon just released from a pokéball after days of internment. Energy surged through his limbs, but without a solid handle on his agenda, it was only succeeding in making him feel dizzy and beset, not enabled.
As Ash danced around yet another lingering puddle, one obvious conclusion was made: this part of the search was proving fruitless. Pikachu wasn't here alongside the road, out in the open, nor was he hiding away in the fringes of the inhospitable marsh. Ash couldn't come up with a practical (optimistic) reason why he would be, either. Choosing to discount, for now, the immensity of the woods beyond Pallet's borders and the near impossibility that presented—after all, why would Pikachu wander further away from home?—Ash started to focus on where his search would take him next. Pikachu was in Pallet Town. He had to be. But where?
It was time to start knocking on some doors. Someone had him. Poor Pikachu was probably nervous and antsy, but hopefully warm, comfortable, and fed. Ash knew he potentially had a long day of introducing himself to a score of strangers before he'd find his friend, but no sacrifice of time was too great or imposition too awkward. He'd do whatever it took.
Up ahead the woods were coming to a natural point, giving way to open land and a more plentiful cluster of homes. Ash paused and gave the neighborhood a quick scan. It seemed like an appropriate enough place to begin his door-to-door inquest. The community was situated halfway between Ash's house and Professor Oak's, and if Pikachu had been on the move to either, he might have been noticed by a pitying resident. Why no one had called or gotten in touch with Ash was puzzling and discomfiting, as he was sure most people in town knew of him and his pikachu, but he was going to give them the benefit of the doubt before dwelling negatively on that thought.
As he began to cross the road, he wondered why the day before, when the conditions had detained him in the house and he'd accomplished nothing but agonizing, he hadn't spared a few minutes to print out a couple dozen flyers.
Missing: Pikachu. Yes, that one—the one you've seen on TV.
Valuable…no—invaluable.
The backs of his eyes instantly burned with tears, but he clenched them tightly and willed them away. He wasn't going to cry! Crying was a distraction! And he'd already established this with himself—he couldn't have any distractions! Focus and equanimity were the keys to finding Pikachu safe and sound. Distractions were only going to set him back.
Getting honked at as he barely reached the other side of the street could be constituted as just such a prime example.
Though the beep was gentle, a mere rap on a horn, it still succeeded in catching the rapt Ash off-guard. Jumping at the sound and nearly tripping up over his feet, Ash's head instinctively snapped to the right and to the source. And then his eyes went as round and wide as a possessed hoothoot's.
No…it couldn't be!
Roughly a hundred yards away, pulled off to the side of the same road he'd just been walking down, was a silver sedan. A very familiar silver sedan.
Ash's heart immediately leapt into his throat as he gawked in disbelief.
What in hell was he doing here?
His first instinct was to run. If he hadn't been so stunned, he might have. Instead, his feet seemed to have merged with the pavement. Paralyzed in shock, Ash could only watch vulnerably, almost in slow-motion, as the car door opened and out stepped his father.
Straight-faced, inscrutably so, Jay shut the door and leaned against it, crossing his arms and loping one leg over the other. He was the image of casualness. Gone were his trousers and his buttoned-down shirt, replaced with jeans, his weekend jacket, and even a baseball cap. From his relaxed demeanor, it looked as though he'd been waiting patiently, contentedly even, knowing exactly when and where he was bound to meet up with his son.
It was all so deceiving. Ash knew exactly how his dad felt, and none of it was represented by his bizarre, laid-back manner.
But that wasn't the most baffling aspect of this turn of events. Why Jay was there was a little more disconcerting, naturally. And how in Ho-oh's name had Ash not noticed him? Had he been that consumed by his undertaking that he'd managed to waltz on past his father's car so obliviously?
Well, maybe that wasn't too far-fetched. Ash wondered fleetingly if he could have strolled past an imposing line-up of legendary pokémon and failed to see them, so long as a little yellow mouse was not in his immediate periphery.
But just as swiftly as the question of Jay's presence arose it was replaced with the answer. While it didn't take away from the shock of it all, Ash knew exactly why his father was there.
It had been easy to put what had happened in the back of his mind when he'd set his attention solely on Pikachu. But now, faced abruptly with what was no doubt going to be round two and the last of their altercation, it all came rushing back crushingly. Worse, Ash felt all the livid recklessness that had fueled him not too long ago dissolve into thin air just with their unspoken acknowledgement.
Frozen stiff, all he could do was glare at Jay, who still maintained his pokerfaced guise.
"What are you doing here?" Despite how much Ash tried to keep his tone confident, the question came out betrayingly unstable.
Still propped comfortably against the car, Jay's mouth twitched into a slight simper. "Came to take care of some unfinished business," he replied matter-of-factly.
Ash's knees quivered. Taking off right then and there was what his body itched desperately to do, but now he fought the innate temptation. He knew, in the end, it would be a useless—not to mention dimwitted—move. He couldn't run forever. It only took an instant of levelheadedness, forcibly attained in the heat of opposition, for him to fully grasp the scope of the situation. This confrontation had been inevitable from the very start, but it certainly had come much quicker than Ash had anticipated.
For one—and only, really—his father should have been at work. He'd been going to work. He'd been up and dressed and a coffee and two pieces of toast away from heading out, until…the incident occurred. And yes, as much as Ash regretted it, and as much as he knew his actions would come back to haunt him, this was the last thing he saw coming. Did what he said, what he lay down so angrily and so powerfully, affect Jay so much that his dad actually abandoned the idea of going to work, changed his clothes, and waited deliberately on the side of the road for him to turn up?
He was totally done for.
Ash took a deep, shaky breath, desperate to achieve some poise. There was nothing more he could do now. It was time to face the music, premature though it was, but he was going to do so holding his ground. And then, he'd just keep looking for Pikachu. Simple as that. Because nothing was going to stop him. This was to be no more than a bump in the road—an incredibly unforeseen, unpleasant one, but that's all it was nonetheless.
His eyes boring into his father's as boldly as possible, he straightened, attempting to camouflage his nerves with a forged brazenness he was certain Jay wouldn't fall for nor appreciate. But he needed something. Wordlessly, he conceded his father the next move.
Finally, Jay shifted. Even through his mask of daring, Ash was impelled to backpedal a few feet. Jay took note and paused, the smirk growing a bit bolder. Ash's throat tightened a little in indignity; he was so glad his father was enjoying this. But then, why shouldn't he? He had the advantage now. He was in control. He was entitled. He had his son at his mercy, and if he wanted to milk that to the max, he had every right.
Taking his attention briefly away, Jay glanced through the open window of his car and leaned in to retrieve something. Ash went rigid, save for the little somersault his stomach did. With fierce acuteness, his eyes zeroed in on his father's hand as it slowly returned with…a coffee mug?
Jay held the travel cup up at face level and tipped his head at his gaping son. "Forget something?"
Ash blinked a few times in rapid succession, forcing himself to ascertain what his father was presenting. "Oh," he said dazedly. "Oh, right. My cocoa."
"Yeah. Your cocoa," Jay drawled. He extended his arm, offering the mug out to Ash, but all the boy did was back up another step. The reaction triggered a faintly amused huff from Jay, though he still failed to produce a genuine smile.
"Contrary to popular belief," he quipped, "I'm not gonna bite."
Despite the cordial tenor to his father's voice, Ash didn't attempt to make up for his small retreat, opting instead to root his feet in place, hook his thumbs under his backpack straps, and hunch his shoulders inward. It wasn't that he didn't trust his father—he believed that it was, indeed, cocoa—but this all seemed too...paradoxical. Now it was looking like his father skipped out on work not to put him in his place out of sheer impatience…but to bring him his breakfast?
His silence only made Jay's brow arch. "Well?" he said, craning his arm encouragingly. "You gonna take this now or...maybe sometime in the next week? I'm growing a beard here."
"I—I don't want it," Ash replied hastily. It was only half-true; his annoyingly incessant appetite was begging to differ.
"Oh, come on," his father frowned. He took a few steps, and Ash did everything in his power not to fall back in turn. "You're really going to turn down someone making this especially for you, and personal roadside delivery, too?"
Ash's eyes darted.
"At least accept it out of gratitude, son."
"I'm not hungry," Ash persisted.
His dad sighed. "I know. I know. But...you really should have something. And I'm not saying that to echo your mother. I want you…" He suddenly trailed off, shaking his head, and took a deep breath. Evidently, he was ditching the approach he'd been about to take.
"No. I don't want you to do it for me," he rephrased. "Don't do it for anyone but yourself. Okay? And—and Pikachu. You think Pikachu wants you out here looking for him while you're starving to death?"
"I'm not starving to death," ground Ash stubbornly. He really didn't know why he was so adamant about this. His stomach was bewailing its emptiness. At the same time, however, the thought of ingesting any type of food made him nauseous. Never before—not even prior to any of his League battles, when his stomach would twist in ways he didn't even think were biologically feasible—had he experienced such an aversion to eating. It…sort of scared him. As did a lot of other things presently.
"Ash…" Jay pressed quietly, coming forward again.
Ash panicked at his advance, and shouted, "No! I don't need it!"
The fierce assertion—shriek, actually—made Jay's head jerk back, and Ash's breath held tight in his lungs. He really hadn't meant for that to come out so manically. The cool and collected facade he'd wanted to portray was collapsing, and fast. Granted, the encounter was revealing to be genial more than anything, but Ash could never really anticipate his father's actions. This could go south for him very easily, and every bit of dignity mattered.
Shrieking, incidentally, wasn't particularly attractive for a guy his age, either.
Jay opened his mouth to make some sort of response, but he suddenly shut it, and his head dipped in what looked like…amusement?
"Oh, wow," he then chuckled. Chuckled!
That certainly did it—Ash had literally seen every emotion cross his father's features that morning, an absolute exposition of Jay Ketchum.
Jay lifted his head, and at last, there was the smile that had been threatening to materialize the whole time. "That's so funny. You know what you reminded me of just now, you saying that? The night you were born."
Ash cocked his head blankly.
"Well—no, me, on the night you were born," Jay quickly clarified.
Ash must have been giving his dad quite the look to make up for his inability to say something to that, because Jay's smile coiled whimsically, as if satisfied with his nonplused reaction.
"Okay, so your mother was in labor a long time—nineteen, twenty hours? Longer than either one of us expected, that's for sure," he recalled. "And that whole time? I was a nervous wreck. I couldn't sit still for two seconds. They kept telling me to relax and calm down, but there was just no way that was happening—no way. I mean—could you blame me? I was, what, twenty-one-years-old, I'd barely been married a year, and all of a sudden—boom, you were coming! I was terrified."
He shook his head as he breathed this admission, but the smile lingered. Ash just listened—it was really all he could do, but he was guardedly captivated with what Jay's random account had to do with anything. This encounter was proving cyclonically dizzying, going from postulated ambush to delivery service to…story time?
"The last thing I wanted to do that day was eat," Jay continued, rotating the travel mug in his hands. "I had absolutely no appetite. Any time the nurses brought me food it just sat there untouched. They even brought me frozen yogurt, and I didn't even want to look at it, if you can believe that! And forget about me going down to the cafeteria—even before Mom started pushing you out, I couldn't bring myself to wander ten feet away. Heh, you should've seen how fast I used the bathroom each time I finally gave into it!"
He erupted in hearty laughter, but that slowly died out and his expression sobered. Jay fell back and settled upon the hood of the car, propping his feet up on the bumper.
Geez, how long was this story going to be? Ash wondered as he watched him make himself more comfortable.
After a pause, Jay arched a shrewd eye at him from beneath the brim of his cap. "So…do you wanna know what happens to you when you spend an entire day freaking out, worrying, stressing, working up the grossest sweats imaginable, annnnd...you don't eat?"
Ash seemed to perk and slump concurrently as his father's tactic was cleverly unveiled. But despite the instantaneous chagrin he felt, he couldn't fight the curiosity that leached from the cliffhanger dangled before him. He'd never heard this story before and wondered why. It was sort of engaging...except it was being ruined by being used as an awkwardly obvious lecture.
"Let me tell you," Jay smirked, after letting his point sink in, "nothing fun.
"I didn't even realize something was wrong with me. I was so preoccupied with falling to pieces over everything that was going on that I didn't feel I was hungry, that I was losing energy. And all of a sudden—hours and hours after being in the hospital, right before your mom started getting serious—I felt really, really dizzy. It just hit me—like that. I remember my vision getting all fuzzy, and my legs feeling like they weren't going to hold me up in the next second, so I immediately sat down. Fell into the chair, more like. And boy, must I have looked like real shit, because suddenly all the nurses were all over me. All of the nurses who should have been tending to your mother." He hesitated austerely. "Who had been tending to her."
You don't have to go on, Ash thought, and wanted to vocalize. He even had the urge to roll his eyes outwardly at how apparent it was that he got it, he got it, anyone would get it. The moral was all but slapping him in the face.
Yet he remained silent. The fact of the matter was that the parable was indeed hitting home in the way Jay intended and Ash sought to avoid. Abashed, his eyes strayed from his narrating father to the ground. It felt better to distractedly take in a residual puddle, reflecting the pale sky and sheer clouds above, than to acknowledge Jay.
But his father, obnoxiously perceptive as he was, probably saw the effect it was taking on him, because he went on.
"Here I was, so worried about not being there for your mom or missing out on something if I left the room for one second, and look, I almost wound up doing myself in, only because I was too stubborn to realize that being there for someone also kinda includes taking care of yourself at the same time. You scratch yourself out of the equation, you're not there for that person, simple as that, am I right? I wouldn't have done Mom any good passed out cold on the floor while she was delivering you. Well…she probably wouldn't have been surprised if I'd fainted, but from being a wuss, not from self-imposed starvation."
He chortled at his joke, though his voice still held a hint of sedateness. Ash didn't so much as crack a faint smile. Jay's drollness wasn't going to soften the reality that what he was saying was all so sensible, not to mention debasing.
His father had a point. He admitted it...covertly. But that still didn't mean he wanted the cocoa—or cookies, or Thanksgiving dinner, or chewing gum, or anything. This was different. But how he was going to explain that to Jay—and make a clean getaway on top of it—he didn't know. He just wanted Jay to shut up, so he could be on his way...
"Ash."
His attention was forced with the gentle and succinct demand, for before he could even gather himself to resist it, his father's eyes were locked with his, blazing with gravity.
"I'm telling you this because I have a good idea what you're going through," he empathized carefully. "I know you don't feel like eating and don't feel like you need to, but you have to understand. You're running on adrenaline and emotion right now. You think you're invincible, that nothing is going to stop you from doing what you need to do, and it won't—for now. But truth is, it'll only take you so far. There is going to be a point where your body can't be sustained just by adrenaline anymore. And that moment is going to hit you out of the blue and knock you flat on your butt. You think it won't happen and can't happen, but it will."
Ash glowered at his dad, and subtly began shaking his head in denial. It won't.
Jay sighed. "It happened to me, and I was in a hospital room," he said. "I was indoors—sitting down, walking around a small room. All the amenities were right there. I was in a secure setting.
"But you're outside, Ash. You're running around for miles and miles in all sorts of conditions, and—and at all times of the day and night! Think of all that energy you're burning up! Think of how much you're exhausting yourself! You're not sitting down and stewing with worry like I was. The most energy I burned was from pacing the floor. That's nothing compared to what you're putting yourself through."
Jay regarded him grimly. "You're not going to last much longer if you keep this up, I promise you."
And at that, he must have considered his case rested, because Jay hopped off the car and presented the mug to him once again. Ash balked; he hadn't expected the allegory to be concluded that unceremoniously. Or the assumption of Jay's that he was going to cave just like that.
His father took his draw-back as continued distaste of the cocoa, though, and smiled sadly. "C'mon, it isn't Grandma's Tabasco chili," he groaned. "It's just milk and cocoa powder."
"...Dad—"
"I know, I know, there's no rum in it," Jay admitted. "If I was being forced cocoa, I'd want it to be loaded, too. But considering this is your first food in hours, I'm not so sure liquoring you up'd be such a bright move."
Turning to jokes again. Completely like his father, but Ash still wasn't going to allow that method to win him over. He shook his head again and backed up another step, but the space between him and his father still seemed stifling.
"Ash." Jay's shoulders sagged at his obstinacy, and the airiness of his features dampened. "Please. I didn't tell you that really embarrassing story about me just for kicks. I…I can't see what almost happened to me happen to you. I can't let you go not knowing how much longer you'll hold up. Especially since you like to go running off and making yourself lost. Please." Another proffering of the mug, that damned, blasted mug. "Just, please have a little? Give me some peace of mind?"
Peace of mind. Like he was the one who needed that, Ash scoffed.
"...You take care of yourself and you can take care of Pikachu."
But there was that exasperatingly rational logic again. On cue it seemed, Ash's stomach twinged, though he still wasn't sure what that was trying to tell him. It could go either way: to Jay, it indicated hunger; to Ash, anxiety. It was uncomfortable, but surely it didn't imply frailty. He didn't feel faint: his legs were restive and willing, and his heart was hammering. Still, the mug stood out like a beacon, so unwanted yet so appealing at the same time. In spite of it all, he did like cocoa, and in the cool autumn air, it would be the perfect fare. He truly didn't know if his body would receive it, though.
There was no way, he realized, he was going to get out of this without satisfying his dad's persistence. What was Ash to do? He could grab the mug and go, to decide on whether or not to consume it later—or chuck it in the bushes when his father wasn't looking; they were viable ways to get around what was being demanded of him now.
Then again, if sipping the cocoa was all it was going to take to get rid of Jay, it was a much better outcome than what Ash had originally projected.
He could get out of this, away from this—without further ugliness, it seemed. Time was also wasting away impenitently...
And so, casting his eyes from his father's, Ash tentatively took the mug. What he hadn't expected was the heat seeping through instantly, warming his numb fingers and sending a wave of relief coursing through his nerves. He almost let out a moan, the soothing feeling lulling him into an unexpected daze.
It was the best he felt all morning.
"I think Mom even put half-and-half in it," mused Jay delightfully. "She's so desperate to fill your stomach I'm surprised she didn't make the whole thing up with that!
"Go on," he then urged. He reached out and tapped the bottom of the mug gently in persuasion. It snapped Ash out of his spell, and he wrenched his stubborn gaze from the steaming spout to Jay's reassuring smile. His father looked so caring, so concerned. So much like he did that morning before Ash went and threw everything off, shot his mouth off in ways that stitched his belly worse than his hunger.
What had he been thinking…?
Blinking away more unsolicited tears, he resigned and brought the cup to his mouth. One sip—that's all he needed to give.
"Easy," Jay warned softly. "It's been cooling in the car for a while, but it still might be hot."
Complying, Ash let the cocoa lap into his lips to test it before letting a small amount pool in his mouth. It was hot, but not painfully so. He could feel his tongue and throat being slightly scorched, but it…tasted great. And with that, he took another swig. The cocoa glided to his stomach and filled him at once with warmth and fulfillment.
Okay. So maybe this wasn't such a bad thing after all.
"That's it," Jay crooned. "How about as soon as you polish some of that off, you and I can...resume the search, huh?"
Ash was in mid-swallow as he said this, and the cocoa nearly went down his windpipe.
"Wh-what?" he coughed.
"Yeah. You, uh...you still had places you wanted to look, right?"
Clearing the last of the liquid from his throat and wiping away a chocolaty film from his lips with the back of his hand, Ash tried to register what Jay was implying before speaking. "Yeah, but…w-with you?"
"Yeah," his father shrugged. "Thought I'd give you a hand. You okay with that?"
"Y-yeah, but… I mean..." Ash faltered, trying to permeate his shock quickly enough to let his dad know that yes, it was okay—it was just...really unforeseen in light of the recent events. Except, now it did kind of make sense why Jay went through all that trouble to change out of his work clothes to bring him his cocoa...
"—Shouldn't you be at work?"
Smirking, Jay shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'm sure there's a handful of people at my place who will insist that I should," he said. "But if anyone dares to tell me that something there comes anywhere close to being more important than what's going on with you, they'd better duck right afterward."
Ash didn't doubt Jay's judgment one bit, but he was still baffled by its timing. Where were these sentiments when Jay had woken up this morning? And how in the world had his view shifted in Ash's favor after Ash had unloaded his wrath upon him?
Clearly, he was absolved for his offensive deeds. Or so he figured—Jay wouldn't mislead him this considerably. But something still wasn't adding up right. Despite his father's kindly offer, there was something vaguely amiss in Jay's conduct.
"Figured you could use some company," his dad added. "I mean... I'd also prefer you not do this on your own."
Was that the reason? Because his dad was afraid of him searching his quiet, little, harmless hometown all by—
Wait a second—
"But I'm not alo—" Eyes going wide, Ash stopped himself as the unconscious retort sprang from his lips. His heart accelerated, pounded in his ears, as if it only suddenly dawned on him how he'd lost track completely of Misty and Brock. Whirling around, he searched the area to verify that they were nowhere in sight. Shouldn't they have caught up by now? "Misty and Brock..."
"I sent them home," Jay filled him in. "They didn't have anything to eat, either, you know."
"O-oh," Ash responded guiltily, turning back to him. "Oh. I...I lost them. I didn't wait up for them..."
"It's okay," Jay assured. "They're fine, they understand. They'll meet up with us in a little while."
Despite Jay's dismissal, Ash still felt deflated. It was all starting to come to a boil what had actually transpired in the last half-hour. Not only had he estranged himself from his friends, left them behind so thoughtlessly in his dust, but he did so in light of their devoting themselves to him without first attending to their own needs. And now his dad—who'd been so compassionate and supportive of him that morning, whom Ash had then heartlessly blasted for doing something, he realized soon after, was unfeasible for Jay's character—was here now, out of the blue, putting aside his daily responsibilities to lend him assistance.
"So...?" Jay said suddenly, breaking him from his pensive stupor. "Shall we?"
"Uhh...s-sure," Ash sputtered, gathering himself again. "Yeah. I—I was going to go knock on some doors, see if anyone around here has Pikachu."
Instead of the acquiescent face Ash expected, Jay's brow wrinkled in doubt. Second strike-out of the morning in that regard. "Yeah? Is that what you want to do—you sure?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"...Um—o-okay." For a split second, Jay faltered, averting his eyes and running a hand through his hair beneath his cap before concluding: "Okay, yeah...we can do that. Let's do that."
Ash frowned quizzically at his father's back as Jay shuffled back to the car to roll up the window and lock it up. Even with all the stress bearing down on him, he wasn't incognizant to his father's strange behavior—only because Jay was usually the one bursting with sanguinity and the go-getter spirit. Now he was offering a generous hand...only to sound like he was doing it noncommittally?
Whatever, Ash shook his head and decided to quickly shelve it as soon as he realized what he was doing. As long as Dad's helping me, what difference does it make? He was letting a distraction occupy his mind. And hadn't he decided that distractions were not going to get in the way of finding Pikachu?
Yet, as they made their way over to the block, hushed in the still of the morning, Ash's mind was whirling, not quite sure what to make of all the factors that had gone into this eventful day, or of all the mixed feelings he was fielding. Earlier, his whole being had been driven with one emotion: fear. Now he was experiencing an overwhelming variety: shock, remorse, esteem. And then, there was that other one creeping in, the one he just couldn't dispel, the one he recognized as being far more ill-timed and conflicting and downright scary.
"Dad?" he asked softly as they approached the first house, a modest bungalow archetypical of Pallet Town.
"Yeah."
"Pikachu could be in one of these houses...right?" He didn't know where that question came from, that sudden reveal of doubt. It just...came.
Ash didn't dare look up into his father's face. Jay's pregnant pause painted a clear enough picture of his expression.
"Yeah. Yeah, he could be. Sure."
He wanted to sound optimistic—Ash could tell clearly. But no promising language could mask that heavy tenor of hesitation, the same voice Jay had used earlier when Ash had first disclosed his strategy—like his dad wasn't completely onboard, but didn't have the heart to tell him so. It was such a short time ago; Ash remembered how uneasy Jay's manner had made him feel. It had bothered and boggled him, but he'd written it off hastily, forbidding anything to upset his confident resolve.
This time, however, as they approached the front door of the house, a world of unknown beyond the thick oak, Jay's bleak attitude was even more striking.
Because Ash was starting to feel it, too.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Oh, what am I going to do with these people? Ash, so stubborn and blindly hopeful. Misty and Brock, so dejected and stuck in the middle. Jay, so conflicted and at odds with his heart and responsibility. When will they all lead themselves in the right direction? And will I let them? ;P
You know my update timeframe. It's become a sad one, but it's honestly the best I can manage. 2012 is going to be the busiest year of my life. This story will never leave my to-do list, but it may drop down a few slots. Thank you for reading and hopefully enjoying! :) Reviews would be much appreciated.