route_1065 | Not this crap again

Not this crap again

Who: Shaun Mars

neededlassie and Carter Blake

lieutenantantichrist (possibly Norman Jayden

triptoprofiling later)
What: Shaun has another traumatizing encounter with water, and learns a valuable lesson about keeping Susie out of her Pokeball when he's at all near water ever.
When: Afternoon of 3/2
Where: Roundabouts Route 32

Shaun had been training Calvin against some of the Surskit and other water types (but not the Buizel) around the water. Because Susie and Calvin didn't get along when Calvin was training, Shaun let her stay in her pokeball. The wood on the bridge was more slippery than Shaun expected, though, so when he ran out onto the wooden boards pumping with adrenaline with Calvin in hot pursuit of a Surskit, he wasn't expecting to slip. He slid off of the wood with a scream, sliding into the water almost in slow motion, his hands scrambling for purchase on the planks. Cold fear overwhelmed him as he slid into the even colder water, and his chest seized up. He reached for the disappearing sky as it faded into dark, dark blue.

Then something slimy wrapped around his ankle, and suddenly he was sucked even further under, and when he opened his mouth to scream water rushed in.

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"Oh." Blake looked chagrined. "Sorry."

He wasn't used to being around kids. He kept forgetting to watch his fucking mouth.

Somebody else might ask if the Mars family had pissed off any gypsies lately, but Blake knew plenty of nasty shit happened all on its own.

They came into the center followed by a trail of animals. Fortunately there weren't that many people around besides the clone nurse at the counter. Her standard obnoxiously cheerful greeting turned to alarm when she saw the state they were in. It might have been the same one from the other day, who the hell knew. Oh. Judging by the dirty look she shot Blake as she rushed over to fuss over the kid, probably. Like it was his fault.

"Mutant jellyfish," Blake said shortly. The welt on his face had to be pretty self-explanatory. He showed her where it got Shaun, too, and she rushed off to get something. They must have had some kind of standard mutant squid procedure.

So far, Shaun hadn't reacted real well to being the center of attention. Not hard to understand. Nobody likes being rubbernecked at. They were attracting a few stares, so Blake tried distracting him.

"Your weasel looks different."

...That was easier than he thought. Shaun almost lifted his head to look at the Lieutenant in surprise when the man actually apologized for swearing, but he wasn't really in a shape to be surprised.

The Pokemon Center was warm, and Nurse Joy's concerned voice set Shaun even more at ease. A couple of her Chansey helpers brought a gurney for Blake to set Shaun on so that Nurse Joy could treat his ankle, and when he was set down Shaun slid so that he was lying down on his side, curled up with his injured ankle atop the other and his hands pillowed under his head.

His eyes were starting to look shock-like and distant, when Blake's voice called him back to reality and he looked around for his starter. Blake is lucky Shaun is out of it enough that "weasel" sounded like "Buizel".

"She evolved. She's a Floatzel now." Susie came over to her trainer, and he reached out with one hand to reassuringly scratch his fingers lightly into the little swoop of fur on the crown of her head.

After she took care of Shaun, the clone nurse started dabbing something cold and sticky on the welt on Blake's face. She asked how it was, and Blake said it was fine until she started poking at it. He tried to subtly examine her face for signs of whatever plastic surgery made them all look alike.

"Huh. Looks tougher."

It was a good foot taller than it used to be. Blake was about to say weasels don't float, but for all he knows, they might. It never really came up before.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me." He dug in his bag and got out a pokeball. "Steve'll be mad if I let her miss the chance to say hi."

A mad Snubbull meant Carter got gnawed on, and that was a pain in the ass, so he zapped her out. When she saw Shaun her eyes got large, and she approached his gurney cautiously. She didn't want to scare the boy.

"Bull?" she inquired.

After tending to their Tentacool stings and making sure that their Pokemon didn't need to be patched up at all as well, Nurse Joy went back to her desk, albeit watching them carefully. She sent a Chansey over with a couple of steaming mugs of hot chocolate to warm them up, and the egg pokemon's gentle encouragement was what finally got Shaun to sit up, dangling his feet over the edge of the gurney and holding the cup of hot chocolate in both hands.

He was still barely paying any attention to anything going on around him. Susie hovered next to his knee, making fretful noises every now and again, and Calvin wound up on the gurney next to him, cuddled apologetically to Shaun's side. The Pichu was more subdued than normal.

Shaun didn't seem to even register Carter talking until a bright flash of light heralded Steve's release from her Pokeball. The little Snubbull peered up at him from the ground. Susie's attention was drawn to Steve as well, and the now-evolved Floatzel gave her once-opponent a nod of acknowledgement.

"Hi Steve," Shaun said.

Weirdly enough, the hot chocolate helped. His clothes were starting to dry out some, too, and whatever the clone lady had globbed onto his face, it made the lingering sting subside.

Shaun was quiet and distant-looking, but at least he wasn't catatonic. You couldn't ask for much more than that.

Steve nodded back to Susie politely. It was a good fight, and she would like to test her skills in a rematch sometime. She looked to his guardians for permission, then hopped up onto the gurney beside him and put her stubby arms around him in a hug.

Blake rubbed his welt and looked away. Jesus, affectionate dogmonsters.

Of course the hot chocolate helped. Hot chocolate helps almost everything (and ice cream helps the rest). When Shaun finally took a sip of the hot chocolate, it seemed like he was running on autopilot.

Susie watched Steve carefully, but let her approach Shaun. His soaked wool coat is probably staticky as heck from the attention Calvin's been giving him, but the hug from Steve actually makes Shaun look at her in surprise. A small smile comes to his lips and he wraps an arm around her, scritching her ears with that hand.

"I'm okay, Steve." He looks at his own worried Pokemon. "I'm...I'm okay, guys."

There was a sting of static, but it was very little compared to a Thundershock. Steve hummed happily at the scratch, one foot kicking the ground. She was very sorry for scaring him before. She was glad to see the boy smile.

Blake wouldn't have figured the kid could do that. With all the little animals around him, he looked like goddamn Snow White.

A woolly head butted Blake's hand.

"Yeah, yeah, nobody's forgetting about you," Blake muttered, petting him surreptitiously. Good thing he was dry.

The foot kicking the gurney made the shaky smile on Shaun's face more certain, and he even almost maybe kind of laughed a little even as the wheeled gurney shook under him. He smoothed her pink fur down after messing it up with scritches, making sure not to untie her pretty ribbon.

Shaun looked up at Blake for the first time in a few minutes.

"Why did you save me?" he asked.

Instantly, Shaun was Steve's favorite person. She flopped in his lap in a blatant bid for a belly rub.

Blake looked up from the sheep. "Huh?"

It took a second to sink in. At the time he hadn't known it was Shaun, not until he got closer, but that didn't make a difference.

"What kind of question is that? Nobody'd just walk by and let a kid drown. You gotta do something. It's reflex."

Shaun obeyed the unspoken command, giving the little pink bulldog a tummy rub when she flopped over in his lap.

His expression was still cautious and guarded, even with the admission, still not quite believing Blake's story.

"But..." He trails off. But what? But they hate each other? For the first time, Shaun's faced with the truth that the policeman may be a jerk, but the hatred between them was one-sided.

But Blake killed his dad? Yeah, that was true. But that didn't really have anything to do with Blake saving his life.

The monster who killed his dad was human. It shouldn't have been a shock, but to an 11-year-old who hadn't been taught so much as thrust headfirst into the lesson that bad things happen to good people, Blake had by necessity become a villain on par with the man who kidnapped him as a way to help him cope, to give him something to project his anger, his grief, and his guilt onto.

With Blake's affectionate starter sprawled across his lap and the man telling him that he'd acted out of instinct, out of decency, Shaun didn't really know what to think anymore.

Shaun had endeared himself to Steve forever. She stretched out and sighed a happy "Snub."

Everything he'd done was to save this kid, even if he'd never believe that. Not for anything personal, but just because it was his job. There were plenty of people a lot older who didn't get it either. Everybody who got the story with the benefit of hindsight and tabloid black-and-white thought they would've gotten it right, like they wouldn't be calling Blake a monster if Ethan Mars had been the killer and he hadn't gone all-out to stop him.

The strangest thing was, the kid could have easily been right. If the man he thought was the killer had come out of that warehouse alone, at the first false move, Carter would have had him shot. Wouldn't have thought twice. Hesitation got people killed.

Carter scratched at his welt. The nurse immediately called "Don't scratch that!" as she passed by. He dropped his hand and made a face at her back.

He shrugged. "You're eleven, kid. That we don't get along that great doesn't mean I'm gonna let you get f- let you get killed."

Now if it had been Jayden, him Blake might've let fight a squid on his own.

The happy Snubbull in his lap made it hard for Shaun's ire to rise above tepid frustration. It helped that Carter wasn't actively going on about how he hadn't killed Ethan again. Shaun knew what he saw, and he saw his dad walk out the warehouse door with his hands raised. He saw his dad gesture back at him to stay back and stay still. He saw his dad silhouetted by the helicopter beam, and then he saw his dad get shot.

As far as Shaun knew, the police had never bothered looking for him. It was only his dad who knew where to find him.

He knew his dad was dead when he laid his head on his chest and didn't hear his heartbeat, but he refused to believe it until he woke up in the hospital the next day and his mom broke down crying when he asked where his dad was.

Shaun was silent for a long moment. He looked down at the Snubbull in his lap, and then over at his Pichu and Floatzel.

"Who would've saved me if you'd shot my dad before he found me?"

Yeah he's not talking about his most recent near-drowning anymore.

The kid believed what he believed. Trying to set him straight just got him yelling and screaming. And kicking. It didn't do anybody any good. Murderer was nothing he hadn't been called before, but he didn't need it today.

Blake was absently scratching McNulty's head. He looked up at the sudden subject change. Shaun's eyes had a haunted quality that an eleven-year-old's shouldn't.

It wasn't an easy question to answer, but he owed the kid that much.

"He wasn't the only one looking. The whole police force was coming for you. So was that journalist."

Madison Paige was a crazy idiot to try to track down the killer on her own, and god was he ever sick of seeing that damn book everywhere, but he had to respect the balls it took to crash through a barricade on a goddamn motorcycle.

"And Norman."

Fuck, that was hard to admit.

Shaun had no idea who Madison Paige was. He had never met the journalist, even though she had watched him from afar, grieving his father's death like he was. His eyes narrowed at the answer he was given. It wasn't enough.

"But he found me. My dad was the only one who found me in time."

Because Shaun wasn't stupid. He remembered being too weak, too tired to keep his head above water. He knew that if his dad hadn't come, he would've drowned. The implication was there, the accusation, plain as the nose on his face.

If you'd shot him before he found me, I would've drowned.

Blake knew what the kid was driving at, but it didn't make any sense. His brow knit in confusion.

"No, they were there too. You didn't see them?"

It would be natural for the kid not to be paying much attention to anybody besides his dad. Shaun had been going on four days alone in a well without food or sleep and nearly died (Blake shoved away the rekindled rage about who would fucking do that to a kid), though, and could have missed a freight train.

From her place on Shaun's lap, Steve gave Blake a look that said clearly, Don't you dare upset this little boy.

"I saw Paige walk out with you and your dad, and I got the rest of the story straight from Jayden." The whole station had, as sickeningly unbelievable as it was. "You must've been confused. After all that, it's a miracle you were even conscious."

Shaun's fingers tightened against Steve's fur. Susie doubled the look to Blake, warning him that she may not be supposed to attack trainers but if Blake continued upsetting Shaun she would make an exception.

"No they weren't. No one but my dad was." His tone wavered a little bit. "I dunno anyone named Paige." His eyes narrowed even more. "I'm not confused, I know what happened."

He was starting to simmer with anger and resentment again, coming to a slow boil tempered mostly by the pink dog still in his lap. However mad he got at Blake, he wouldn't punish Steve for it.

"Okay, okay." Blake held his hands up. "I'm just telling you what I saw."

Kids. You couldn't reason with them. Blake didn't want to get him yelling or crying again, even without a pink dog and a waterweasel teaming up to death glare at him.

"Madison Paige, that's the journalist I was talking about. She was helping your dad."

Aiding and abetting was what Blake would have called it at the time.

"You're a liar." Man forget every venomous pokemon out there, those three words packed enough poison to knock out a prizefighter.

Susie looked about like she was going to introduce Blake to her Ice Fang for that, the crest on her head fluffed up in anger, and her flotation sac inflating.

"I don't know any journalist. Dad never..." He never told him about a journalist.

He never got the chance to, either.

Blake had been hated by some real pros in his time. Guys who tried to shoot him, stab him, or just plain beat him. Guys who actually said things with flecks of spittle. There was one guy who went on so long about what he'd do to Blake with a piece of broken glass that after a while it was just impressive he wasn't repeating himself.

None of them had anything on this kid.

Blake let his breath out slowly.

"It doesn't matter now. The real world's a long ways away."

Well, Blake knew the killer's M.O. Was it any wonder that the one kid - one kid, out of nine - whose dad succeeded in finding him in time would be a little messed up if he thought that Blake had killed his dad?

Shaun let out a shaky breath as well when Blake finally spoke. He looked down at his lap and the Snubbull still sprawled across it. It did matter, it mattered to him, because as far as he was concerned, if Blake had showed up before Ethan got into the warehouse, then Shaun would be dead.

After all, he had spent four days pleading with the killer to let him out, and each time he had been met with "I can't do that, Shaun." "Your dad is the only one strong enough to save you." "He's on his way, Shaun, don't worry." And then when he came to, his dad was there. It should come as no surprise that the boy thought his dad could move mountains.

It was a long moment before Shaun spoke again.

"Could you call Norman and tell him to come?"

It was no surprise that this kid was messed up. The details were the weird part. Blake was no child psychologist. He didn't have a clue why Shaun would be so convinced his dad was dead, though from there, to be honest, deciding Blake was at fault wasn't that much of a leap.

If Ethan Mars had been there alone, if they'd all gotten there in time to catch him outside the warehouse...ifs were a waste of time to think about. (If Nathaniel Williams had had another weapon.) Once you started thinking about that, soon you were second-guessing everything you did and never getting anything done.

Blake noticed he'd been combing his fingers through McNulty's wool. Now and then the static prickled and made tiny sparks.

"Yeah. Sure."

His phone made some weird noises and the display was messed up, but it was dry enough to work.

"Hey, Norman. Come pick up the kid at the Pokecenter."

All that 'hello, how are you' crap was for other people.

The message Norman got from Blake didn't sit too well with him. Not when Blake had agreed to keep his distance from Shaun until they figured this whole thing out. Now apparently he has to pick up Shaun from the 'Center.

...Something was up.

Shortly afterwards, Norman walks into the Pokemon Center in a rushed worry. Looking in different directions for Shaun.

Shaun had been sitting in thoughtful, reticent silence while he waited for Norman to arrive. He had been moved from the gurney to a chair after his ankle was bandaged, but he'd been given a change of clothes and a fresh cup of hot chocolate, dressed in a shirt that he was practically swimming in and a pair of sweatpants that he had to hold up when he stood. His hair still stuck to his forehead wetly.

He didn't notice Norman come in, but Susie did. She waved a paw with a call of "Floatzel!"

Carter was waiting at a distance calculated to be able to keep an eye on the kid without inviting him to yell at him or ask if he would've been left to die. He was hunched over a mug, wishing it was spiked with something. He could use it. The ugly borrowed shirt must have gone great with the welt on his face.

When the weasel called out he looked up and saw Norman. Blake put the mug down and got up. For once, he didn't feel like chewing him out. He came closer so he could keep his voice low. Had to go by him to get to the door anyway.

"Kid fell in the water," he said shortly.

There is something about the way the Floatzel waved her paw and how Blake settled his mug down on the table that made Norman's heart stop for a millisecond. Perhaps it has to do with the two both being the Pokecenter. Perhaps it is much to do with Shaun wearing a change of clothes. Perhaps it has to do with Blake, the gruff middle-aged man, approaching Norman to tell him that Shaun fell in the water.

Perhaps it was all of the above. Yeah that's it. Norman nearly had a heart attack.

He looks at Blake for a second, his brows are raised. The guy looks like a helpless worrywart. He doesn't say anything in response.

No, instead he walks past Blake to Shaun.

"Hey..."

He paces slowly towards him.

"You alright there?"

Momma Norman to the rescue.

Shaun looked up at Norman when the man approached him. There was something haunted in the little boy's eyes, a look that didn't belong on any 11-year-old. He hunched forward and wrapped his arms around himself.

"Yeah," he said, even though it was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that he wasn't.

Blake's sheep clopped to a stop behind him. He wasn't sure why he paused and looked back. Maybe it was the weird rapport Jayden seemed to have with Shaun. Maybe it was how he could still feel the kid who hated him shivering and clinging to him. Maybe it was just that he had to wait for Steve to give Shaun another hug before hopping down and padding after him.

Blake stayed back and kept his mouth shut.

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Not this crap again

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AHH DIDN'T SEE THIS, SORRY FOR THE LATE

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