It had begun with a light sprinkling, and by the time Merin's feet had met with the moist earth of the path leading back into the brush and trees, the puddles as shallow as they were, had already been forming by the dozens. The wind had picked up by then, the sounds of distant thunder not so distant anymore. When she'd seen the lightning rush across the sky, her quick steps had accelerated into a full on galloping. The mud splashed beneath her paws, rising to meet with the fur of her legs and yellow of her coat as the roar of thunder rang through the air.
Leaves whipped past her face, a blur of yellow, red, and orange as the trees thrashed upwardly all around her as if they were reaching for the dark sky. See? She knew that she couldn't cut it out there. Within the span of so little time that shower had turned into a downpour, and Merin was absolutely hating every second of it. When she had seen the chimney of the shack, something else washed over her that was certainly more than the rain. It was pure relief. The boards of the porch were littered from the dirt of her paws, and she couldn't get through the door flap fast enough.
Most of it had come off in the clatter but the living room carpet hadn't escaped the drips of water and certainly not the dirt in the shape of her paw prints. Gabe wasn't going to be happy about that but on the brighter side of things, the color of it had already been on the darker end of beige. The trail had grown lighter all the way to the bathroom, her jacket left to the floor in a small puddle. She'd shaken with all her might inside that shower, letting loose all the dirt and rain that had found its way into the deepest part of her fur. It was an absolute mess. Merin didn't like the feeling of wet fur; and she wasn't any happier as she pressed her head and paws into the faucet handle to have even more of it drench her.
She'd flopped wetly onto the tub's floor like a large, dirty rag, pawing at herself any which way that she could. Some of the mud had already dried, making hard clumps of her fur. The flow of water that drew off her had been dark, and small slivers of hair drifted like little sailboats with it, caught as if in a hurricane to meet with and swirl at the drain before ultimately disappearing down it with a gurgle. While it felt good getting all that off of her, deep down she knew that she had done it this way for him, Gabe. He'd tried in the past to help wash her, and suffered a good thrashing and tail smack to the face for all his troubles. She didn't like showers or baths; and while it pained her to feel every hair on her weighed down, sticking to her and whatever else her coat could, she wanted to do it for him. Her paws had found their way around the tub's corners and walls, wiping at what they could reach to draw down the earthly stains.
When the water had finally come to clear, she couldn't paw the faucet off fast enough. The shower curtain braced for impact as she gave herself the final shaking of a lifetime. So much so it felt like even the room itself was shaking when she'd finished. Her back leg had kicked instinctually as she made her way out the bathroom door. And when Marin had seen it, her heart sank as the full dirt trail showed every little track she had left behind. Ears lowering, she couldn't help but let out a small whine. She'd caught it, stopped it, and shaken herself from wherever her mind was taking her. Whatever she was thinking for that one second, he wasn't like that. Gabe...wasn't an angry person. She'd known that, and she'd claw away at anything wanting to take that truth from her. It was dirt; it could come out.
The sounds of her paws skittering across the tile filled the kitchen. The door beneath the sink had been managed open, and Marin just about gagged as she took in a mouthful of sponge. The taste of the haunting of soap long past met with the fragrant scent of mildew born in the darkness beneath the sink. It came off the thing so dreadfully pungent that only so few words could best describe. It was icky. She hadn't made it halfway back across the room before she spit it from her mouth. She'd nudged it with her nose onward, flipping and eventually even throwing it a couple of feet out into the living room and right against the couch.
When she had managed it to the dirt stains and squished one beneath the yellow and green square, she became utterly baffled when with every pressing down of her paws and stroke, the stain only grew. Then it dawned on her...water. She needed water. Again. Her head had turned to the kitchen in silence, but that Eevee let out the loudest sigh she could muster. She hadn't kept track or known how long that she'd spent there, going back and forth between rooms, but when she had finally felt at least okay with the job, she sat back on her hind and panted. It hadn't needed to be a rush job but for some reason it felt like it was something sorely pressing for her to finish. What was it about today that made her feel so off? It was like being on a thin wire that she couldn't quite get her balance on again. Like she felt...vulnerable. She didn't want to fall.
Maybe it was just one of those days for her. They didn't come often but they did still happen. Her tongue had been hanging out with each heavy breath she took, and she didn't want to be where she was right now on that floor. The couch had felt good to her as she lept onto and nestled into one of its grooves to let one last long and drawn out sigh from her nose. It comforted her, the feelings and words in her head that she kept thinking over and over. "You're safe. This is your home. You're safe..." she hadn't realized what that work had done to her so early on in the day. Before she could even begin to form more thoughts in her head, her eyes had closed and she drifted quite easily off to sleep within the groove of the cushions of the couch and the darkness of the room.
The rain had been coming down hard against the glass. Gabe hadn't seen a storm like this in a long time, and it had him a bit antsy, worried. And it wasn't about how many customers that weren't going to show up that day or how wet he was going to get opening and going through the shipments they were expecting. Andrew Garrison had been standing right beside him and staring out the window too. He hadn't so much to say on the matter other than "Guess we'll see which way the wind blows on this one. Might be a short day today." shaking his head and wandering off to the back.
Between the flashes of concern and mental images of her being hurt somehow, only half of what Mr. Garrison had said reached Gabe's ears. Something about...winds blowing someplace. The sky had lit up for a flash of a second, and the windows shook with the crash of thunder cutting through the rainfall. He turned away too, catching sight of the rain mat being fished out in Garrison's arms. The old guy was still spirited, you could give him that. Gabe had finished the rest, rolling out the red carpet so to speak, and found his way to a broom along the way. There wasn't a better time outside of closing to give a good full store brushing, and he was starting to get the feeling closing was exactly where they were headed soon for the day.
A few things had kept Gabe company during that time. The humming of the overhead lights, the sounds of rain and thunder, and his thoughts coming and going as they drifted from Merin to a book he had been reading recently that went by the name "Cryptids, folklore, and the Pokemon between" by Richard Varnus. It wasn't quite the exciting read he'd been hoping for, and it was...dry at best to say the least for the first chapter that he had given it. It's rather hard these days finding the kind of writing that can be down to earth enough to do its research but just artistic enough to be entertaining and give you more than a history book read.
Merin was right back on his mind again, and he couldn't help but smirk a little at the realization just how much that little Eevee seemed to be at the center of his life. It helped distract him momentarily from the worry. It was probably a thing some folks would have found odd, probably even pathetic how attached he'd been to her. As if love was anything to be called pathetic. But still, he might have come across like some sort of crazy old cat woman, only you know, he wasn't crazy...or old, or a woman...and it was just Marin, a single, handful of an Eevee that he could hardly imagine being without. Maybe that's just how true friendships were, even if one side of it wasn't human.
How they had first met wasn't quite what you would imagine as ideal. It didn't start so happily either. On the contrary it began with a long drive and a lot of doubts behind the wheel. He hadn't wanted to go out that day back then; wasn't feeling up to where he was headed. He'd dragged his feet on it all day, but he'd been given the car and told how happy he should be for something so special to look forward to. This is all to say that Gabe had been on his way to a rescue and retrieval shelter that he hadn't so much been talked into but rather persistently badgered towards by his folks. He'd politely said he would think about it enough times to deserve the eventual shove.
Mom and dad meant well, of course they did because they worried about Gabriel. He wasn't exactly popular when he'd been in school, and what friends he had, came and went with graduation. Things didn't pick up from there either when it came to meeting new people let alone catching a beer together or...something! Anything! Things just didn't seem to stick when it came to Gabe, even in a small town like Vacuur. It wasn't like he was desperate or being chewed up not being with people. It's just that he'd been used to it which he didn't know if that was sad or just the way that it was. Either way it wasn't exactly a confidence booster, and whatever which way he felt about it, his mother and father were keenly aware just how abnormal it was.
The sun had been in the rear-view mirror, the last throws of its light clinging to the blackened mountains on the horizons behind him. He'd lost the blinding reflection of it for now as the highway began to twist around into the valley, and though he wasn't much of a night person, the man was quietly praying he wouldn't be going right back into it on the drive back. He'd neglected his sunglasses, baring the full weight of sundown's light finding each way it could getting him to squint every mile he'd taken so far. The right side of his forehead had been stirring, threatening the beginnings of a headache that hopefully wouldn't come. He'd been on the roads for roughly a half hour so far, and there hadn't been more than a car or two passing in the opposite direction.
The color of the woods were different out there. A deeper, darker blue in the shadow of the mountains, appearing to Gabe almost like the forest were the open waters of a swaying ocean. He'd even caught sight of some low hanging mists along the riverbank below, what he could make of it, divided between his attention as it was. He hadn't realized until he'd been there now just how much a part of him, a rather large part, had been needing this kind of thing. Not so much driving and certainly not the assault of the sun on his eyes, but the sights out there. Something more than what he had been growing used to until it was all he thought there was.
There's a certain melancholy to suburbia, and even Vacuur had its denser area's of populace where the lawns were kept short and the brick walls hid away a nature unwelcome to a more organized and straightforward idea of the world which was anything but. A Simpler way of life didn't always mean a happy one because a wall was still a wall, and even a matter as a little bit of difference in a person or thing meant you could easily belong on the other side of it at any time...kept out with the rest of nature. Gabe was probably more simple than anything else, but that didn't mean he was on the side of things where he was wanted to be. He just had the habit for the longest time trying not to think so much on it because again that's just how it was for the most part when it came down to the hand you were dealt, wherever it was dealt. Which brought him back to why he was there now on the long drive, watching the purple and red sky give way to a darkening blue until at last his headlights came on.
It wasn't right let alone normal for a young man his age being alone in his life; that's how his father felt, and his mother shared the notion. But a gap in age and a chasm in certain values kept both them and their only son at a distance anyone couldn't find the reluctance to cross. It's not like his mother was about to go inviting him to the community center or his father coaxing him to the bar to mingle with the local riff raff and maybe wind up with a phone number in his pocket. Those were a thing of their time, solutions to a young man or woman's problems when they were his age, and they did see it as a problem. Even if Gabriel had been a certain way to him that was clear wasn't going to change, that didn't mean he had to be alone. If he couldn't have friends then...maybe he could have a pet. They'd long given up on nudging him out the door all those years to meetups, but they'd both mutually began an assault on Gabe, getting him reasonable with the idea having a Pokemon. It'd help them all feel a little better about the whole situation. Like something had been done.
As the car came to a stop in the parking lot and the engine went off with the lights, Gabe had only two things on his mind, and it was the clearest thoughts he'd had that day. The first, Michelle's Poke-in-the-heart was a terrible name for a shelter, and the second, he hated brick walls. He still had a few hours to take a look around the place, not that he was needing it. Michelle's rescue and retrieval shelter was hardly large enough to house a sizeable volume of its guests, and the thought alone there hadn't been many in there to begin with was actually rather comforting to him as he sat alone in the waiting room. Guess he was the only one about that time.
This wasn't the kind of place where adoptions came off happy beginnings, and the less Pokemon that were there, well, that at least meant one less sad story in the world. Even with the time he had, it was almost like he couldn't keep his eyes off the clock, darting back and forth between the clipboard and hour's hand that put him at close to six. He'd been sitting in the waiting room between a worn recliner whose overhead had a rather stained yellow CRTV mounted haphazardly from the wall, and a mini-table full of months old magazines. Possibly years even, he hadn't the notion to check. He was slow to filling his name on the check-in, and debated putting himself on the mailing list before he'd been interrupted and lead into the back halls.
Most of the doors had been closed and the lights hadn't all been on in there, making it a rather dim walk with the worker. She was a rather friendly and animated woman with the look of someone on their third cup of coffee, and her name was Grace. He couldn't imagine how you could work all day in heels, and her clothing choice was...rather eccentric to say the least. He liked that; helped him see the place as less clinical and more human. He'd taken in all he could of what it might look like working there and seeing the daily happenings of the place. The framed scenic paintings on the walls, the black invoice boxes and photographs of smiling Pokemon. He'd caught sight of one that he was sure was a Snivy whose nose had gotten just a little too close to the camera's lens.
There had been the drawings too. Various mock-ups in pencil and crayon that he could to some degree make out what they were of. Of course it had been Pokemon, and nurses, doctors. To be honest he wasn't quite sure if some of them might have been more imagination than real. The sheer volume of unique and varied Pokemon out in the world could absolutely make your head spin, and it seemed like some new species was being found each day if you were willing to look across the internet for it. It was kind of funny, a little embarrassing even for Gabriel remembering that when he was still in Elementary he believed there was only 150 of them out there.
It was a quiet place actually, and while he wasn't entirely sure what to expect, Gabe had at least imagined it to be more lively than it had been. He'd seen through a window into a dark room, its curtains half drawn, and could barely make out the shape of heat lamps over containers of what he thought might be eggs. He hadn't looked up much if anything at all on the website when he'd been getting the directions down. He was, after all, with only half a heart in all of this. Maybe they were just there as a hold-over for some other group to come and collect because this was starting to look like the kind of building meant for volunteer work and short stays.
The thought had crossed his mind for a second about the idea of raising a Pokemon from an egg, and he would have asked until a rather potent smell started in the air towards the end of the hall. It was unmistakable, animal. When Grace had opened the double doors for them both, it was almost dysphoric. The flooring had been a mixture of green laminate panels, the walls a series of white and yellow tiles hidden behind the rows of cages and indoor kennels. It was meant to look like a happy place, but happiness isn't what you found behind locked cages. It was in the stories you made when it came to what you left with. Gabriel still didn't know if he wanted to do this. Something about all of it, especially about what he felt in himself... was wrong, standing where he did then. All hidden behind a nervous smile. He'd still look.
Some, most of the cages had been empty. Some with bowls or towels left in them, the remnants of half eaten food left behind.
"Would you like me to show you and talk a little about some of them?" Grace had asked him, brushing away the red curls from her eyes. "We're all rather attached here when it comes to our rescues, but if you're more comfortable looking yourself...?"
He'd nodded "Yeah, I would appreciate looking on my own. I won't take too long-" but she'd spoken over him albeit reassuringly.
"Please, there's no rush. Take your time. You can look at the charts attached to their containers; they'll give you their names and tell you a little about them."
He'd appreciated that as he took his steps along the way. There hadn't been many charts but he had heard scratching, movement here and there. When he'd come across the first chart, the cage it had been attached to was rather closer to the floor. They'd been like rather spacious boxes with wire bars for their doors. He'd knelt down and looked in. At first he wasn't sure what to make of it, what had been as far back there in the cage as it could, caught between a torn up pink towel. But he'd soon seen it, the eerie luminescent glow of two large, brown eyes that stared back. And they were beginning to widen. When he'd seen the ears perk up and slap lightly against the cage's ceiling, he'd had a pretty damn good guess what he'd been looking at.
It was an Eevee. And the first thing that came out of its mouth was a loud hiss.