Togekiss
ooo
"Oh my god," said Gold, holding the quivering egg at arms' length. "Oh my god."
"Naw…" says Croconaw. He stares at the egg, evidently fascinated.
"Oh my god! Croconaw, help me! What do I do?"
"Croco!" He points at the nearby Pokemon centre – in fact, they're standing right outside it. "Croc!"
"Good idea!"
Croconaw hops off. Then he stops, realising that his trainer is not actually following him. Gold, apparently, is paralysed with fear. "Croco croc!" he growls angrily.
"I'm paralysed with fear!" says Gold, rather helpfully. "Oh my god, what if I drop it? It's hatching all over me and I'm gonna drop it and I'm not ready to be a daddy oh my god."
Croconaw bites him.
"Oh fucking ow," says Gold, but he starts walking. A piece of eggshell flies off and lands on Croconaw's head. Croconaw wonders if he should get Gloom out, because they really do need a calming presence here, but he decides that he really can't be bothered with that and besides, Gold is in no state to listen to anything that's not a step by step guide on how to walk an egg to a hospital.
ooo
An hour later, Gold is still somewhat paralysed with fear.
"Piii!" chirps the baby. It waves around stubby little arms. Gloom nudges it closer to Gold.
"What am I going to do with you?" asks Gold. Togepi chirps into his face and puts on its cutest expression.
"Glooom…" Please calm down…
Gold gently picks up the baby. "I don't know anything about raising kids! I don't even know what kind of Pokemon this is! Is it even meant to still have shell on? What the hell do I do now?"
"Gloooooom…"
"What do I feed it? Where are its parents?!"
"Gepiiii!" The Togepi is struggling to free itself. Gold puts it back down on the pile of warm towels.
"I am so not ready for this," he says. "What the hell was Elm thinking, anyway? I'm gonna call Lyra. Gloom, take care of the baby."
ooo
"Look, you'll be fine. Professor Elm obviously thinks so, and you've managed to raise Totodile so well," says Lyra, making calming gestures over the Pokegear.
"Nooo," Gold says. "It's not the saaame. Toto- I mean, Croconaw – he's not a kid! All I do is make sure he doesn't get lost in town and sometimes take him to Pokecentres when he gets tired! I'm not, like, y'know… Togepi's a baby! Literally! A. Baby. I'm not a babysitter, I'm a fucking battle coach!"
Lyra frowns. "Okay, look. I'll email you some books about raising baby Pokemon this evening, and you can interrogate me about Marrill is you want, but I really don't think you should be worrying so hard. Besides, Gloom and, um, Croconaw can help you out with everything too, and you can call me for emergencies and stuff. But I really have to go now, sorry…"
"Can't I just leave Togepi with your grandparents?! Or you?"
"Um, yeah, but that's… kind of not the point of Professor Elm giving you the egg to begin with?"
"But they're trained Pokemon raisers! I'm not!"
"Look, call me back this evening, okay? I have to go! I really need to pee! And stop panicking!"
"I'm not panicking, I'm just… evaluating the circumstances!"
"What? You've never been this jumpy before, you always seemed so, like, confident about everything. And you know you're really good with Pokemon! So what's different about this? How can you be okay with leaving home on your own to go to – hey, where are you now anyway? – I mean, I didn't even think you knew how to panic…"
"Uh..." There's everything different about this but Gold can't put it into words – it's the difference between blindly running into battles and gym challenges with Croconaw, his partner, at his side, and blindly running into dangerous battles and tough gym challenges with a newborn Togepi whose only life experience depends entirely on Gold. It's the difference between trusting his battling and tactical instincts to assertively order Gloom to take the hit in order to sleep-powder the incoming enemy, and between trusting his non-existent Togepi-raising instinct to do… something.
It feels like that first time Croconaw fainted in battle, his first wake-up call on the first day of their journey. But even that wasn't like this; he'd seen that kind of stuff on TV all the time, Croconaw was never in any real danger.
Gold's never had anyone depend on him, not really. He doesn't think he's ready for this. That's a hundred times scarier than a newly-hatched Togepi, because as far as he can remember, Gold's been ready for everything and then some.
"Yeah?"
"I'll call you back," says Gold, because he's just noticed Gloom sidling out of the Pokemon centre leading a bouncing Togepi. He waves his Pokemon over.
"Okay, bye." The Pokegear beeps; the videocall is cut off.
ooo
Togepi holds out his arms and sends a perfectly timed extrasensory pulse at the Golbat. A mess of wings and high-pitched shrieks, and then Silver is scowling at his fallen Pokemon across the cave floor.
"Return, Golbat," he says coldly.
"Good one," says Gold. He grins broadly at Togepi, who bounces happily. "Aw, Silver, upset that my baby's kicking your ass?"
Silver gives him a look that says, The only reason I'm not throwing you into a wall is because you're only slightly too far away, but otherwise gives no response.
"C'mon, get back here, big guy," Gold says. Togepi flashes back into his Pokeball, and Gold gets Croconaw's ball ready for the next round. "… see, I was gonna make a joke about me actually directing that at you. But I won't. Because you're kind of being a complete asshole to battle against."
"How terrible for you," sneers Silver. "Go, Bayleef!"
ooo
"Nice Magnemite, by the way," says Gold after the battle - and after Silver's done with his usual rant about Team Rocket and weaker trainers.
Silver looks even more sour than usual; Gold guesses that he probably doesn't like losing. "Thanks," he says curtly. "… your Togepi's not as weak as it looks."
"Yeah!" says Gold, cuddling Togepi in his arms. "He only hatched a couple of weeks ago, but he's already ready to battle. You know, I was kinda scared about looking after him, but he's been so great with me-"
"I really don't care," says Silver. "Stop wasting my time, understand? I'm done playing around with you and your weaklings."
"C'mon, I wanna talk to you more! This is like, the third time that I've bumped into you, so it must be fate." He wiggles his fingers convincingly. "Anyway, I was saying that it was kinda really scary looking after him at first, and… I guess… well, it's really cool that you think I'm doing a good job."
Silver gapes a little. "I- what? I didn't say anything like that, you loser!"
"I mean, I've been trying to think about the whole thing a bit more, you know, trying to do a good job on his training and what I should feed him and who he should play with and stuff, and which TMs I should get for him, rather than just going by instinct and letting him do what he wants, so… yeah, do you think that's working?" He looks at Silver expectantly.
"… oh, that's good," says Silver, who looks like he's desperately wishing for a handy teleport right about now. (He should probably get an Abra one of these days.)
"Good?"
"… you're a weak trainer," Silver says, scowling. "So it's good that you're thinking about your training, even for a pathetic baby like that, because someone like you can't survive on blind instinct."
"Yeah!" says Gold, high-fiving Togepi. "And you're not a pathetic baby, you're a cute wonderful strong-"
"I'm going," says Silver. "Get out of my way." He shoves Gold – but a little lighter than last time, and maybe it's just because Gold's holding a baby, but Gold likes to think perhaps he's starting to break through Silver's defensive shell – and storms past.
"See ya!" calls Gold.
"Stay out of my way, asshole," mutters Silver in reply, a little too far away for Gold to hear him.
ooo
To me, Lyra and Kris are different people SO YEAH. Also it is a lot harder writing about Gold than about Silver, because self-inserts = bad fic. (My Gold is basically me, just with Friendliness turned up to 100 and Caution turned down to -100.)
My Togekiss is called Zoli.