Covalence: Chapter 5: Chapter 1

Lyte woke up to the pale glow of morning, shivering with cold and feeling like he’d been trampled by a miltank. The shivers revealed aches in parts of his body he didn’t even know existed; even his cheeks felt sore and tender. He clutched his blankets closer, finding them weirdly rough, not to mention soggy around his legs. His bed felt stiff as a board, his pillow was missing, and he’d had the strangest dream. The pikachu opened his eyes a crack, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling much too far away. He stared at its water stains and peeling plaster for a long time, uncomprehending.

When it finally registered that he was not at home, Lyte tried to bolt upright and immediately regretted it. Pain spiked through his extra-heavy head, dropping him limp back to his rough, hard bed. He took it slower the second time, disentangling himself from his blankets to free his arms. They weren’t blankets at all, actually; he was wrapped in a huge sky-blue bath towel. Befuddled, Lyte pushed himself up and looked around.

He wasn’t in a bed, nor even on a proper table. He was lying on a taped-up cardboard box, in a room clearly sized for a larger pokémon. The walls were bare, three of them painted what was probably originally “eggshell” and now had yellowed to a classic Halcyon off-white (a color so far from white that only a Halcyon realtor would still call it off-white). The fourth wall, next to Lyte, was bare red brick, its rough surface exuding a palpable chill. The ornate baseboard and crown molding suggested this place had been nice, once; now they were dusty and old, shed black and yellow fur clumping in the corners of the hardwood floor.

No lights were on, but indirect sunlight shone in from a pair of open windows across the room, their thin white curtains rustling in the frigid breeze. Who, the fuck, sleeps with windows open this time of year? He yawned; his head felt thick, his thoughts percolating extra slow this morning. We basically live in a desert. It gets freezing at night through mid spring, and it’s not even spring yet!

Below the window was a desk, most of its surface piled with papers, pieces of mail, and crumpled dirty napkins. The mess extended onto the floor around it; some looked like it’d blown off from the breeze, but the dust and shed fur on the rest suggested it’d been there a while. A hard wooden chair sat in front of the desk’s only clear spot; it looked so beat up that if it hadn’t collapsed yet, it probably never would. The trash can by the desk overflowed with empty wrappers and takeout containers, with a row of full trash bags leaning against the wall and shelves nearby. It seemed whoever lived here had given up on bags (or ran out), because more containers were stacked on the floor around the desk, their innards coated in dried curry residue. Lyte wrinkled his nose. At least I carry out my trash.

Behind the trash bags, a couple scuffed and dusty bookcases leaned against the walls, shelves made of cheap and sagging particle board. They were stuffed not with books but with anything else that could go on a flat surface: Lyte spotted boxes of protein bars, bottled berry extract, painkillers, medical gauze, all sorts of things. Even two shelf-stable healing potions, practically glowing blue in the indirect light, like the life dew from which they were derived. Does some sort of gym bro live here? he wondered. He screwed up his eyes, trying to push through the lingering sleepiness. No, they wouldn’t need actual healing potions.

Further to the right was the door (tall to match the ceiling), and in front of it a chair serving double duty as a table and a coat rack, supporting a big gray coat that was uncomfortably familiar. Lyte squinted at it. Hey… isn’t that…

From his left came a shifting of fabric and a sleepy sigh. Lyte flinched, then turned, trepidation pushing his ears back against his head. Next to him, in the corner of the room, was a mattress. His eyes had glazed off it the first time, drawn to the light of the window, but there it was. No bedframe, just a mattress on the floor, with someone sprawled out in a tangle of blankets. Even with only her head exposed, the yellow fur and double-notched ear were all he needed to know it was Zinnia. Lyte’s hackles rose, his fur standing on end from his neck to halfway down his back. Oh fuck. That all really happened? was his first thought, followed right after by Damn, she lives like this?

On the floor right next to him was an orb charger (ft. conn orb), and next to that a digital alarm clock, resting askew like it’d been rudely shoved off his makeshift table. It took a second for his sleepy brain to read the glowing red time upside down (9:27) and another couple before the significance of it hit him like a brick. “Oh fuck,” Lyte said. I’m late for work!

All his concerns about Zinnia’s apartment and about everything that had happened the night before were immediately shoved aside. He was already on thin ice at work and he couldn’t be late again—admittedly, that ship had sailed, but he could still try to do something. He had to. The pikachu frantically squirmed his way free of the towel. It felt like it was catching on his leg, but he managed it. “Zinnia! Zinnia, wake up,” he said, rolling onto his front and jumping onto her bed.

Or at least, that’s where he meant to go. His left leg jumped. His right leg… didn’t. Lyte felt a spike of painful tenderness and spun through the air, landing on his back next to the alarm clock. He yelped. At least he’d only fallen a foot.

Blankets rustled behind him. The zeraora stirred at the sound of his squeaky yelp. “Hwuh?” she mumbled.

Lyte stared at his right foot with dread. There was a black splint strapped around it, some stiff material encased in fabric; he curled up (ow) and ripped off each strap until he could pull off the whole thing. Underneath, his yellow fur was matted and stiff, with a sour and faintly minty scent to it. He blinked several times to make sure he was seeing straight, because his foot wasn’t. It was the wrong shape. Crooked, with a subtle kink in the middle.

And his leg felt wrong, too. It didn’t bend properly; one of his joints, his knee, felt locked up. Trying to force it hit him with another shuddering wave of that tender, painful sensation, and the pikachu thought better of trying again. “Zinnia, what’s wrong with my leg?” he said, fear adding a stammer and quaver to his voice.

She let out mewling yawn. “It’sh broken,” she said, voice thick with sleep. “Asshole fuckin’ smashed it real good.”

“No, I remember, but, but it’s not broken anymore,” Lyte said.

“Whuh? Sure it is. ‘m taking you to a doctor today to fix it.”

“You’re not listening,” he said, panic rising. “When it was broken it hurt and now it doesn’t hurt but look at it, it’s not better, it’s worse!”

Zinnia shuffled on her mattress. A shadow fell on Lyte as she poked her head out over him; he looked up at her, upside-down, pleading. The zeraora looked back at him, then at his leg, mismatched blue and yellow eyes contracting to focus on it. She frowned. “Oh. That does look bad.”

“That’s what I was saying!” He wiggled his toes, then tried to move his foot around and yelped in pain. “And I can’t bend it or that—mmph!”

A paw as big as his body covered his face and belly, its smooth cyan pad muffling him. “Shh. Don’t panic,” Zinnia said. “And if it hurts don’t do it. That’s recovery 101.”

Lyte wriggled, then tried to relax. He grunted in affirmation and nuzzled into her paw.

“So it’s not broken anymore?” She shifted her paw, resting it entirely on his belly and uncovering his mouth.

“If it were broken, it would hurt, wouldn’t it?” Lyte asked. ”…Wouldn’t it?”

“It’s just, there’s no way it could have healed overnight. Are you some freaky fast healer, or—” Zinnia stopped, realization dawning. “Ah, fuck.”

Whatever modicum of calm Lyte had accumulated evaporated. “What? What is it?”

“It’s my fault. I let him heal me, I wasn’t thinking—”

“Zinnia, what are you talking about?”

“Marcus, er, the head medic, when I was leaving he stopped me and healed me, but you must have gotten affected too because you were, uh, inside me, and you weren’t supposed to get healing until you were treated properly or else it’d heal wrong,” she explained, only stopping when she ran out of breath. The zeraora sucked in air, then sighed hard enough to ruffle Lyte’s fur, her breath warm in the frigid room. “It happened just like he said.”

”…Oh.” The pikachu processed this. “It can be fixed, right? Or…” He trailed off, unable to finish the question.

“Uh…” Zinnia stared through him, trying to remember what the gardevoir had said. “He said it’d be harder, like they’ll have to break it again or something.”

Lyte let out a sigh of relief, then let out a cough of laughter at the absurdity of it. Being told he needed his leg re-broken was good news? That boded well. But it was still something.

The zeraora rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. “Three above, I’m such a fuckup.”

“No, no, you’re amazing!” Lyte said. “That means it’s still fixable!” He held onto this shred of hope with all his might.

“But it’s still my fault this even happened to you,” she said. “Thwompert only cared about you because of me.”

“You didn’t throw me at the wall, he did. That’s not your fault. And you kicked his ass for it.” He paused. “That did happen, right? I… It was hard to tell what was going on.”

Zinnia grunted. “Yeah, I did, but still…” She sighed and slowly shuffled her way out of bed. (Part of Lyte was disappointed she didn’t step out over him; perv, he self-chastised.) From where he was on the floor, he could just barely see her in the corner of his vision. The feline dropped to all fours and stretched, arching her back and sticking her front paws way out in front of herself. Her scarf-tail curved up behind her, its zigzag tip swiping at the air above her head. “I’m going to take you to the doctor’s and get you fixed up properly,” she said. “It’s the least I can do to make it up to you.”

The resolution in her voice soothed him. “You will? I mean, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks,” Lyte said. A draft of cold air blew across his fur, making him huddle his arms around himself and shiver. “Can you close the windows? It’s freezing in here.”

The zeraora hesitated. “No, uh, it’s for… ventilation,” she said. She glanced around, eyes landing on one of the trash bags she hadn’t carried out. “My place kind of stinks. Yeah. Sorry it’s a mess, I wasn’t planning on having company.”

Lyte hadn’t smelled anything, but he supposed that meant the open windows were working. “Fair enough, I guess, it’s just cold. Brr.” He shivered again, then squirmed around, rolling onto his front. Just how much can I move without using my leg? Using the mattress for support, the little pikachu shifted his weight back, shuffling forward to get his feet under him. He wobbled, but stood, still holding the mattress. Holding his breath, Lyte let go, putting his weight on his leg. It felt weird, but it held, supporting him…

Until it didn’t. It didn’t exactly give out—something twinged and he flinched, then toppled over when he couldn’t catch himself with his stiff leg. Lyte squeaked and swiped at the mattress, but all he accomplished was an acrobatic pirouette that knocked Zinnia’s orb off its charger, sending it rolling across the floor, bonking off an exposed nail from the floorboards. “Fuck.” His face was squished against her clock, the glowing numerals reminding him of his other problems. “Fucking fuck.” Can’t even stand, and I’m so getting fired… “Zinnia, can you get my orb out of my coat? It’s in the right pocket.”

The zeraora froze, knelt down with a paw on her own connection orb. “Uh.”

“I need to call into work. My shift already started but maybe if they know I’m hurt I can avoid getting written up.” Hey, wait, why didn’t my alarm go off? Did I sleep through it? His heart sank. “You got my coat, right?”

He knew the answer before she said anything. “No,” Zinnia said, wincing. “I didn’t think about it.”

Lyte groaned. “Figures.”

“I’m sorry. I had a lot on my mind.” She growled at herself. “Stupid. Sorry. Here, you can use mine,” Zinnia said, stepping over and kneeling down to offer it to him.

Her connection orb was way bigger than his, and looked to be a much older model. Lyte shook his head and sighed. “No, I don’t remember my boss’s number. It’s in my contacts.” The pikachu sighed again, this time more of a squeaky groan. “Maybe I can get it from Weft? If she happens to check her DMs…”

“Yes. Try that.” The zeraora pushed the orb into his paws. “While you try that, we’ll go in person. Can I pick you up?”

Lyte squeaked. He had to wrap both arms around the connection orb to hold it. “What? Uh… ”

She was already pulling on her coat. “You can’t stand, let alone walk. I’ll carry you there. Then we’ll go to the doctor’s.”

Her decisiveness was reassuring. It was a such a relief to let her take charge; a plan, any sort of plan, was something solid Lyte could cling to. He hadn’t realized how much he needed it. “Okay. Yeah.” He fiddled with Zinnia’s conn orb while the zeraora scooped him up, cradling him against her chest. The sleeve was cold, as was the coat on her chest; he shivered, really wishing he were inside it instead of outside. But first, Weft. He pulled up her socials.

Zinnia saved him from babbling more by dropping a massive protein bar on his chest, still in its wrapper. “Here, breakfast. You’ll need this. Especially if you got healed, that takes a lot out of you.”

Lyte realized he was, in fact, starving. He let her pocket her orb while he tore open the wrapper (“New! Trail Mix flavor!”) and dug in. Honestly, it wasn’t bad, though it was so big and dense the pikachu could only manage to down about half of it, and even that left him feeling gorged. “Thanks,” he said. “Want the rest?”

The zeraora had been eating one herself; she’d already finished, of course. She grunted an affirmative and plucked it from his paws, devouring it in only two bites.

Lyte couldn’t help but pay attention, his ears twitching at the sound of her swallows. That’s right… last night… They hadn’t talked about the previous night at all, how she’d swallowed him, used him like a living generator to dethrone the swampert. He remembered how it felt, his cheeks pressed into that glowing band inside her gut. That must be why they’re so tender. She really drained me for all I had. Even so, he yearned to do it again. Part of him, anyway; the rest of him wasn’t so sure. All together, he was afraid to bring it up. Afraid to learn how she felt about it. And now seemed like a particularly bad time, as Zinnia was descending several flights of creaking stairs outside her apartment.

The air in the stairwell was barely warmer than in her room. He shivered; he could at least manage to bring up that. “Zinnia?” Lyte asked, his voice sounding much more pathetic than he expected. “Can you tuck me into your coat? I’m cold.”

“Of course. I should have already,” she said, unzipping her coat enough to slip her arm in across her chest, tucking Lyte into warm darkness.

The little pikachu closed his eyes and leaned against her fur, cradled by her massive paw. Next stop: the coffee shop.

---

The bell over the door jingled as the pair stepped inside, greeted by warmth and the scent of roasted chesto seeds. The braixen behind the counter looked up, her face visibly shifting from grumpy to fake-friendly to real-friendly as she recognized Zinnia. “Morning, Zinnia,” Weft said. “Hey, have you heard from—” Her teal eyes opened wide as they fell on Lyte, produced from within the zeraora’s coat. “Where the frick have you been?! I had to haul my tail out of bed to cover for you!”

“Sorry,” Lyte said, giving a helpless shrug. “I, uh, I got in an accident yesterday and broke my leg. Well, my footpaw.” He gestured at his right foot, which looked subtly off even from a distance.

“You—” Weft’s expression softened. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She blinked. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Is Leslie here? I need to explain why I didn’t show up or call out this morning. I lost my conn orb too.”

The braixen rolled her eyes and twitched one big pierced ear. “A bit late for that. She’s just going to send you home!” She looked up to the zeraora holding him. “But, since you’re here… Zinnia, can I get you anything?”

The zeraora twitched, surprised about being addressed. “Uh.” She had to think about it, even though she just got her usual. “A cortado would be great.”

“Sure thing.” Weft rang it up, the transaction an oddly comforting island of normality in Lyte’s very strange day. Except normally he was on the other side of the counter, so even this was a bit off.

It didn’t get any better. “What’s all this then?” piped up a high-pitched voice, carrying a commanding tone despite its squeakiness. A gray rodent in an apron scurried out from the back, using the same behind-the-counter walkway Lyte used to get around the café. She was twice as tall as him, with a head to ear ratio rivaling the braixen’s. Thick white fluff trailed after her like scarves, spotless and pristine.

Weft’s ears angled nervously towards flat, wiggling her magenta-dyed fluff, but only for a moment. “Oh, it’s Lyte, ma’am, he got in an accident and broke his leg. That’s why he wasn’t here this morning.”

The cinccino hopped up onto the bar to get a better look at the pikachu. Her apron was just as drab as Weft’s, and her name tag identified her as Leslie, the manager. “Oh you poor thing! Out the rest of the week, I assume? You here to give me a doctor’s note?”

Lyte blinked. That… would make sense. If I had done that.

Leslie took his silence as a no. “What? You didn’t think to get a note from the hospital?”

“Uh.” He hadn’t realized how strange his story sounded, but he was figuring it out quick. This wasn’t how any of his anxiety-fueled rehearsals had gone on the way over. ”…I haven’t been to the hospital yet.”

“You haven’t—” Weft and Leslie both looked at him incredulously. The braixen opened her mouth to speak, but the cinccino was quicker and louder. “What are you doing here with a broken leg? Get out! Go to the doctor!”

“It’s—” It’s not broken anymore, Lyte began to say, but thought better of it. He shut up instead and hoped he looked properly contrite and/or in pain.

Leslie swept her judgment beam up to Zinnia. “You brought him here instead of the hospital?”

The fluffy critter was only a quarter the zeraroa’s size, but fixed by that glare, Zinnia shrank back anyway. “Uh. He was… very convincing,” she said. “Very sorry he no-showed. We’re going there next.”

“Well, I ‘preciate it. Now get!”

“Right away,” Zinnia said, shuffling backwards and nearly tripping over a chair.

“Wait, don’t forget your coffee!” Weft called after her.

The zeraora’s ears flatted, paw tensing against Lyte. He’d never seen her this chagrined. “Thank you,” she mumbled, shuffling back to take the to-go cup and vacating the premises to save what little face she had left.

---

Zinnia was quiet for a while after they left, nursing her coffee and her dignity. “She seems nice,” she said, eventually. “Didn’t seem mad at you.”

Lyte was back in her coat, his voice muffled but audible enough. “She’s not bad, but it won’t matter if I can’t get hours because I can’t work. I don’t really get sick leave.” He sighed.

“So I’ll get you fixed up. It’ll be fine,” the zeraora said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself too.

Lyte appreciated it, even if he didn’t buy it. He nuzzled at her chest. Then something nagged at him. “Wait, will I need like my ID or anything?”

“I hope not, because we can’t get into the warehouse until this afternoon at the earliest.”

“What? Surely you have—” Lyte had no idea if anyone was around. If they were, Zinnia probably already looked funny talking to herself, but he lowered his voice anyway. “Surely you have Mr. Moe’s number? Can’t you ask him to let us in early, or bring us my coat? I know exactly where it was.”

Zinnia shook her head. “He’s basically nocturnal and he keeps to his schedule. He’s not the kind of person you want to owe favors to.”

“Doesn’t being the new champion count for something?”

The zeraora just groaned.

“That happened, right?”

“Yes,” she said, like it was a horrible punishment. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“Oh.” He wanted to ask why, but couldn’t muster the courage. I just don’t want to bother her any more, he told himself. So he kept quiet and didn’t.

---

Since Lyte’s leg wasn’t actually broken anymore (at least as far as he could tell), they altered their plans, taking him to urgent care instead of the ER. Zinnia claimed this would be faster; the pikachu figured she knew what she was talking about, since she—as Weft put it—got punched in the face for money. Nestled under her coat, Lyte didn’t actually see the building from the outside, but the inside was supremely unremarkable: just another commercial building, maybe a little cleaner than most.

To his pleasant surprise, getting triaged was surprisingly quick. After explaining his symptoms to the marill behind the desk, the pikachu only had a couple minutes to take in the aggressively bland waiting room before a nurse called his name and Zinnia carried him to the x-ray room. (He was a little disappointed to see an actual machine, not a medically-trained luxray, but in fairness the latter were in short supply and mostly found in remote locations, where their skills were valuable for field medicine.) The tech flattened every part of Lyte except his leg with a luxuriously weighted lead blanket, then zapped him. It was weirdly comfy; not for the first time, the pikachu contemplated getting a weighted blanket of his own.

Then it was back to the waiting room, to wait for a doctor to be available to take a look at it. And wait, and wait. The earlier speed turned out to be misleading; the room was aptly named. Worse, he didn’t have his connection orb, so the process was excruciating. After the first quarter hour, Lyte had read every piece of text on every poster on the walls that he could see from his seat. It was mostly “Cover your mouth when you cough!” type stuff about wellness; there was a heat exhaustion vs. heat stroke poster, a reminder to check the expiration date on your home first aid kit (which you had, right?), things like that. The highlight to Lyte was a poster about safe cross-type sex: “Protection isn’t just about eggs”, it said, showing a torkoal nuzzling necks with a nidorina, along with a bunch of big cartoony berry drawings (rawst, pecha, cheri, aspear). I wonder if my cheri extract is still good. It’s supposed to be shelf-stable…

He’d looked at the other pokémon waiting, of course, but he could only look for so long without feeling like he was being rude and staring. There was a yellow, orange-striped lizard curled up on a chair nearby, resting her black head atop herself. Across the room, a disheveled mess of purple and pink fur (or feathers, Lyte couldn’t tell; he caught a glimpse of a pale beak once) took up another chair. Every chair near them was empty. Even as far away as he was, their intensely floral scent was cloying and overpowering.

At one point, a furfrou with a shedding problem jumped onto Lyte’s chair and nearly squished him, but Zinnia pulled him out of the way just in time. The poodle apologized profusely—his fur had been growing like crazy, and he could barely see past the haze of white fluff covering his eyes. It was funny in retrospect, or at least Lyte tried to find it funny. Almost smothered by outrageously fluffy dog crotch…

He spent the rest of the time on Zinnia’s lap with both her paws, leaning back against her black-fuzzed abs. He would have loved to be here, normally, but there was an uncomfortable icy silence between them. Maybe “icy” was an exaggeration; it looked to him like Zinnia was staring off into space and dissociating. He couldn’t really blame her; waiting here was terrible. Lyte wanted to bring up last night, but he didn’t want to do it here, and so the silence continued.

Every time the door opened and the nurse poked his coppery trunk out, Lyte got his hopes up. It was never him, though. Eventually, the pikachu resorted to watching the clock and trying to play math games with it. Like doing arithmetic with the digits, trying to make the total come out to 24. A new game every minute! Absolutely enthralling.

Tick. 12:38; 3 * 8 * (2 − 1) = 24.

Tock. 12:39. 3 * 9 − 2 − 1 = 24.

Tick. 12:40. Uh. Hmm. Having a zero kinda sucks. Actually, you could do it with another operator… He shook his head. Three above, how did pokémon manage before connection orbs?

Finally his name was called. The pikachu perked up and patted Zinnia’s paw, but the zeraora was completely zoned out. “Psst. Zinnia,” he said, to no response. Is she asleep? He patted her paw more—nothing—then gathered his courage and elbowed her in the gut.

The zeraora flinched, jolted back to the present. She glanced side to side, then down at Lyte.

“They called me,” he said, pointing to the cufant tapping his foot by the door. “Can you carry me back again?”

“Oh! Right. Yeah.” She gripped Lyte in both paws and rose to her feet, slipping him into a cradling position as she strode across the room.

The squat steel-type was waiting, holding the door open with one stocky leg. He led them through the back halls, plodding along at a steady pace. “Will she be staying with you during the exam?” he asked Lyte, his voice a resonant baritone.

“Uh.” The pikachu glanced back up at Zinnia. “Yes? I want her to, uh, know stuff.” Why do I sound like an idiot whenever I open my mouth? “And I can’t walk right now.”

The cufant twisted his body so he could look at Lyte out of the corner of his eye. “Do you not have any mobility aids? Crutches? A walker?”

They’d been in such a rush all morning, Lyte hadn’t even thought about those.

“Right, those,” Zinnia said. Apparently, neither had she. “We haven’t had a chance to get any yet. We’ll do that next.”

“Mm.” The nurse led them into a small exam room and indicated a padded, paper-covered table with his trunk. “Place the patient here, please.” He stepped back to make room for the zeraora. “Is she your partner? Or a friend?”

Lyte had no idea what to say. Is this important? Why do they need to know this? He looked to Zinnia for help, but after she set him on the examination table, she just stepped back and shrugged. He was really hoping she would have answered for him. ”…F-Friend,” he said, unable to keep a little stammer out of his voice. “But she’s looking after me for now.”

The copper-coated elephant nodded. “Dr. Chase will be with you shortly,” he said. He trunked the door open and trundled out, leaving Lyte and Zinnia to sit awkwardly alone, together.

The pikachu shuffled atop the table, the paper rustling under him. “Wait for an hour just so we can go wait somewhere else. Love it.”

“I completely forgot about getting you crutches,” Zinnia said. “Maybe I was hoping you wouldn’t need them.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’ve had broken bones before, but I guess they weren’t as bad as yours. Marcus set them, healed them, told me to stay off them for a few days…” The big cat trailed off, realizing she was babbling.

“It’s fine. I mean, I…” Lyte sighed. “I will probably need them for a bit. For getting around my house, definitely. I don’t mind having you carry me, though.” He blinked. But she might. “Er, I mean, I really appreciate it,” he amended. “Even if I had crutches my size, it would take me ages to get around the city on them. Thanks a lot for bringing me around today.”

“It’s the least I could do,” the zeraora said. She was staring at the floor, occasionally looking up at him and then right back down as soon as their eyes met.

What’s going on with her? Lyte wondered. She’s been acting kind of weird all day. Her drive from the morning had petered out—in fairness, the waiting room had been a soulsuckingly boring experience—and now she was like… this. Alternating between too talkative and not talkative at all. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Huh?” Zinnia blinked, her mismatched eyes actually lingering on him for more than a second. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m fine. Just eager to get out of here.”

“Me too,” the pikachu said, with an awkward chuckle.

They went back to silence after that. Lyte looked around the room, initially curious as to what medical equipment it would have. He was disappointed to see there was hardly any; only a couple wall-mounted cabinets, a desk (ft. desktop orb setup), an arm-mounted monitor, and a trio of chairs. One nice one for the desk, and two very generic ones against the wall, one bigger than the other (Zinnia had taken the bigger one). And of course there was the exam table he was sitting on. He studied what he could see on the desk and through the cabinet doors. Sharps and biohazard containers, boxes of gloves in various sizes and shapes; nothing interesting.

There were a couple more posters on the walls here. One was basically a hormonal egg control fact sheet, which Lyte skimmed; he was clearly not the target audience for estrus suppressants. Some of those side effects sound terrible, though. Oof. The other poster (“Laying regularly?”) was for how to deal with unwanted eggs if you weren’t on those. What stuck with him was how it extolled the importance of eating your own eggshells to reclaim important minerals; the pikachu was glad he didn’t have to worry about that. He supposed you’d get really good at making scrambles. With shell? Crunchy…?

“Did we get the like, fertility-themed room?” he wondered aloud. “Hey Zinnia, what are eggshells like?”

“Hm?” She glanced at him, then followed where he was looking and scanned the poster. “Oh, no, I don’t pay much attention to that stuff. I don’t lay eggs.”

The pikachu blinked. “So you’re on HEC?”

“Nah. I don’t have one of those, uh, cycle thingies.” The zeraora shrugged.

“You don’t?” Lyte opened his mouth in what could only be an attempt to insert his footpaw even deeper, but was saved by the loud clunk of the door opening.

A brown-scaled reptile strode in with a purposeful waddling gait, her black-striped and black-spiked tail swaying behind her. She went right for the room’s desktop orb setup, grabbing it with both hands and tapping away with her claws. Only then did she give the pikachu on the table a look. “You’re Lyte?” she asked. “Dr. Chase.”

Lyte opened his mouth to say “Yes” and instead said nothing, because the krokorok blinked sideways, her eyes going completely black.

“Well?” She waited another second before turning back to the orb, claws tapping all the while as she navigated the archaic OMR system. Her snout was so long it nearly touched the orb; she kept her head tipped down a little to keep it out of the way.

Lyte realized his mouth was still open. “Uh, yes,” he said, shaking himself a little. Get it together, Lyte.

“Excellent.” Dr. Chase was a no-nonsense sort and got right to business. “So, this happened yesterday? You broke your foot?”

Lyte would have appreciated her directness more if he had been prepared. He gulped. Fuck. We should have prepared a story. Why wasn’t I thinking about that in the waiting room instead of doing math? “Yeah,” he said, winging it. “Last night.” Gods, she’s going to ask why we didn’t come in then, isn’t she…

“Next time, go to the ER instead of treating it yourself,” the krokorok said. She didn’t sound accusatory, just matter-of-fact.

“Well, we didn’t mean to,” Lyte protested, his mouth moving faster than his brain. “I got healed by accident.”

“By accident?” Dr. Chase spun her chair around, leaning forward to stare at him intently. She did the eye-thing again, flicking her jet black nictitating membranes over her eyes.

Why did I say that. I could have said anything. And why is she doing that thing with her eyes? Surely that makes it harder to see, like wearing sunglasses indoors. He shared a glance with Zinnia—who shrugged, very helpful—and felt his cheeks getting hot. “We, uh, we got the dose wrong, I mean. For my size. It was just supposed to ease the pain so I could sleep—we were going to go in the morning—but I woke up like this.”

“I see.” She looked back and forth between Lyte and Zinnia, exhaling a little puff of air from the tip of her long snout. Then she spun back around, her tail trailing stiffly behind her, and input some decisive taps to the orb. The arm-mounted monitor hummed as it started warming up. “Well, anyway. Here’s the radiograph of your foot.” The krokorok reached out to adjust the monitor, aiming it towards the both of them so they could see its ghostly white and black image, but as she did it winked off. “Scales,” she swore.

Dr. Chase rapped the back of the monitor with her claws—it didn’t help—then turned to Zinnia. “Can you go ask the front desk for another PXA cable?”

The zeraora flinched at being spoken to. “Huh? Me?” she said.

“Yes, if you don’t mind. It’d be very helpful.”

“Uh, sure, yeah, I can,” Zinnia said. She unfolded herself from the chair—when not hunched over, she stood more than half again as tall as the krokorok—and slipped past her to the door to let herself out.

That left just Lyte and the krokorok, who swiveled around to face him. “How well do you know Zinnia?” she said, conversationally. She blinked, but her inner eyelids stayed shut.

“Uhh, not super well,” Lyte admitted, struggling to maintain eye contact with those inky voids. It’s complicated. “We’re still getting to know each other.”

“Does she have a temper?”

“She can be pretty fierce; she’s a pro-battler. She doesn’t usually get mad, though.” He thought back to seeing her in the mirror. The way she stood over him, snarling. “But sometimes, definitely.”

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because the krokorok frowned, the corners of her muzzle veering downward. Her voice turned serious. “Has she ever hit, kicked, or otherwise hurt or frightened you?”

“Huh?”

She took this as a request for elaboration and gestured with one claw. “It’s unfortunately not uncommon, especially in high size-difference relationships.”

OH. He got it. “Nonono,” Lyte said, holding up his paws and shaking them side to side. “Zinnia didn’t do this to me. She’s been helping me. Really.”

The krokorok narrowed her unsettling black eyes at him, studying him intently.

He felt compelled to continue. “Maybe I don’t know her great, but she’d never hurt me, not on purpose,” Lyte said. “I’m sure of that.”

Dr. Chase leaned back in her chair and sighed. “All right. That’s good, I’m glad. I got worried when you lied about how it happened.”

The pikachu blinked. “What? No I didn’t.”

“I can see your body heat,” she said, her voice back to flat disinterest. “It’s not always reliable, but yours went all over the place. You’re a bad liar.” Her third eyelids flicked back open, revealing her white sclera. “But that’s okay. It’s not my job to figure out what happened.”

Lyte shuffled, the paper crinkling under him. He would never have claimed to be a good liar, but being told that right to his face still stung a bit.

“It is my job to recommend treatment, though. If there’s any information you’re withholding about what happened to you, please share it, so I can do my job as best I can.”

The pikachu racked his brain. “I got thrown at a wall really hard—it wasn’t Zinnia, I swear. Then I got a splint, and an… ice cast… and then I got hit by a heal pulse I wasn’t supposed to.” Surely it’s not relevant that I was inside Zinnia. “That’s all. Really.”

Dr. Chase nodded and tapped away at the orb, entering this into his chart. “Standard field medicine,” she mumbled to herself. “Thank you. Do you want to wait for her to get back?”

“Huh? I do want her here, yeah.” He tilted his head. “Don’t we need that, uh, cable thing she’s getting anyway?”

She reached up a brown and black striped arm to fiddle with the back of the monitor. There was a clunk as she reseated a cable, and it came back to life. “Looks like we don’t.”

They only had to wait a couple minutes for Zinnia to get back. The zeraora opened the door slowly, almost timidly. “They looked for a while but couldn’t find one,” she said, apologetic. “Sorry…”

“That’s all right,” said the krokorok. “I got it working. Now I just have to not touch it.”

“Oh! Oh, uh, good.” Zinnia hesitated for a moment, then took two big steps to get to the chair across the room, where she sat and watched attentively.

“So. Where were we?” Dr. Chase pulled the x-ray back up, showing the ethereal white of Lyte’s foot bones glowing against the background of darkness.

There were so many more bones than he’d expected. He knew his toes had their own bones, obviously, but they went all the way back to his heel.

“These are your metatarsals,” she said, pointing to the middle five bones with one claw. “There’s at least four malunions here now, likely because they weren’t set properly when you were healed.” She pointed to two obvious ones, where bones that should be straight bent at an angle, and to two more spots where the bones glowed a little brighter. “There’s also signs they healed under some sort of pressure.”

Zinnia’s scarf-tail hit the wall with a loud thwap. The zeraora started at the noise, then shrank into herself as both Lyte and Dr. Chase looked at her. “Uh, sorry,” she said, hunched down with her paws on her lap.

Did we really need an x-ray to show that? Lyte wondered. I mean. You can see it on my foot. The silence stretched a few seconds too long. “So what do we do about it?” Lyte prompted.

“Hold on, I wasn’t done,” the krokorok said, getting back on track. “Now, these malunions aren’t ideal; they’re weaker, likely to cause future complications, but they wouldn’t keep you from walking. It says here”—she leaned in to read his chart—“your knee ‘feels locked up’.”

“Yeah. My right leg’s always been kind of weak.”

“Here’s your knee.” The krokorok highlighted another section of the x-ray, where two bright bones met inside the faint haze of his leg. They looked very stereotypically bone-y, with the knobby ends and everything. “There’s nothing wrong with these bones—that’s good!—so the issue is likely with your ligaments, which don’t show up well on x-rays.” She slid out of her chair and waddled over to the exam table, feet quietly slapping on the floor. “May I examine your knees?”

He was at eye level with her; she was actually facing to the side, looking at him with only one eye, because if she turned towards him she’d smack him with her snout. Her long, toothy snout; Lyte had been trying not to look at it while she talked. It was too narrow to really fit him in it, but—can I NOT think about this right now, actually? Please? “Yeah, sure,” he said, trying to be as normal as possible. The pikachu rolled onto his back, holding his legs up in the air.

The doctor poked at some controls on the table and it juddered to life, lowering itself with a steady whirring. When Lyte was level with her dusty-pink mid-chest scales, she stopped it, the whir fading.

Lyte peered up at her, saw her staring down her snout at him, and was torn between nervousness, amusement at how silly she looked from this angle, and some third tiny part of him that was like hey haha wouldn’t it be really awkward if you got a boner right now?. It would, of course, which is why he imagined killing that thought with hammers.

Dr. Chase took his leg in both her hands, one below his knee, one above. She had to dig her claws into his haunch a bit to feel at his leg above the knee, but even that was practiced and gentle. “Can you wiggle your leg for me? Try to bend your knee, but don’t force anything.”

The pikachu very much appreciated her no-nonsense demeanor now, with her staring intently at his lower body and her claws against his inner thigh. It wasn’t like he usually covered himself up, but having someone staring right there was different. Not like you should feel awkward anyway, he told himself. She’s seen hundreds of people’s bits. He mentally shook himself and tried to bend his knee back and forth; it barely moved, feeling tight and tender at the same time. He winced, shuddering from the odd sensation. “That’s, egh, what happens.”

“Minor range of motion, causes shudder,” the krokorok murmured to herself. “Hmm…” She performed a few more examinations: she squeezed at his knee to see if it was tender (it wasn’t), held his left leg to feel him move it (it was smooth and easy), and compared their sizes (his right knee was a bit swollen). After all that, she seemed satisfied; she nodded slightly (her snout waving wildly in his face) and stepped back. “I can’t say for certain without an ultrasound or an MRI, but this is all consistent with iamatotic ligaments,” she declared.

Lyte squirmed back to a sitting position. It was an involved process; first he rolled over onto his front, then wriggled his feet underneath himself, leaning mostly on his good leg, and finally he shuffled to turn around in place.

Meanwhile, Zinnia had scoffed something that sounded like “doctors”. She was sitting with her arms crossed, her chair behind the krokorok. “What does that mean with fewer fancy words?”

“I was about to explain,” the doctor said, waddling in place to turn and give Zinnia a glare of mild admonishment. She scanned the zeraora up and down, eyes lingering on her twice-notched ear and a few other scars in her fur. “I’m surprised you don’t know. As a pro-battler, you’re going to be exposed to more magically accelerated healing than almost anyone. Your medics have done you a disservice by not explaining its risks.”

“Is there more lecture, or are you done?” the zeraora said.

Lyte got the feeling that it wasn’t the medics’ fault, not exactly. “Wait, I want to know,” he piped up. “What does that mean? Ligaments are a kind of muscle, right?”

This seemed to defuse the staring match; the krokorok turned back to him, eager for a receptive audience. “No. They’re connective tissue; they connect bone to bone. There are several ligaments in the knee—most species have four—that restrict motion. Basically, they keep it from bending or twisting the wrong way.” She gestured to Lyte. “You said your right leg was always weak; that’s likely some sort of congenital ligament or tendon defect. It’s probably irrelevant now, because you tore a ligament last night. Maybe multiple. Then you got blasted with enough magical healing to raise the dead.” She paused. “That was hyperbole. It doesn’t actually do that.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” Zinnia deadpanned. “I didn’t realize.”

“So, my ligaments!” Lyte prompted, trying to keep the two of them from butting heads. I kind of preferred when she was dissociating. What’s gotten her so pissed?

“Right, your ligaments,” Dr. Chase said, grumbling to herself. “They grew back, ‘better’ than new. Now your knee can barely move at all.” She shook her head. “Magical healing is a powerful thing, but you have to be careful with it. Too much of it too fast, and your body won’t just heal back to how it was; it’ll heal past that. That’s iamatosis.”

Zinnia had nothing to say to this. She looked like she was fuming, quietly, to herself.

“So…” Lyte said. “What’s the, um, treatment for it?”

“In your case, surgery,” the krokorok said. “Or ERT. Are you familiar?” She didn’t say it, but there was an implied “or do I get to explain that too?” attached.

Lyte suspected she would have enjoyed the opportunity; unfortunately, Weft had beat her to the punch. “I am; it’s evolution reactivation therapy,” he said. “But isn’t the wait time for it really long?”

She sagged slightly, confirming both his suspicions. “The wait time for either will be long. You’ll have to find out the availability yourself, but you’d be very lucky to find an appointment in under three weeks. Most likely, you’d be waiting four to six.”

“Four to six?” the pikachu repeated, incredulous. And that’s not even getting into whether I can afford it or not. “But—I mean, I can’t work like this. What am I supposed to do until then?”

“You can try physical therapy,” said the krokorok. “It’s possible you may regain more motion in your knee.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lyte stared off into the distance, eyes sliding off the desert crocodile and over the cabinets nearby. It didn’t feel real. I should be taking this worse. This fucks up everything. He didn’t feel any terror or anxiety; even the incredulity had evaporated, leaving nothing behind. He felt empty. I’m totally going to have a breakdown later, aren’t I?

She studied him. “A pikachu… you’re a stone evolution, yes? If you get a thunder stone, you can skip the wait for the ERT medium and just do the counseling; a recent injury like yours should only need a few sessions of preparation.”

This brought one feeling back: exasperation. Lyte let out an impressively long sigh given his size. “I wasn’t planning to evolve soon, and even if I were I’d be out of luck with the shortage.”

“Shortage?”

“Yes! Ugh.” Lyte dragged a paw over his face. “You know how thunder stones are used in some electronics? And hey, remember that stupid Pcoin craze a couple years ago? It dried up the supply and prices still haven’t recovered! Now they cost an arm and a leg.”

Zinnia broke her silence. “Well hey, you could grow those back when you evolve!”

Lyte and Dr. Chase just stared at her.

“That’s how ERT works, right?” She looked back and forth between them, then sullenly flattened her ears. “Wow, tough crowd.”

Lyte shook his head. Process. Next steps. “Anyway, doctor, thanks for your help. Uh, do I need to get referrals, or anything…?”

“They can help you with that at the front desk. Ask for orthopedic, ERT, and physical therapy clinics.”

---

Zinnia carried him out to the front desk, where Lyte handled the talking while she returned to quiet sulking. They left the urgent care center with an honestly overwhelming amount of contact information, a pair of tiny, Lyte-sized crutches, and less several tens of thousands of poké. The forward progress (small as it was) had him feeling better, though that last part stung. “I hope my insurance covers any of that,” the pikachu said, chuckling nervously. Not because it was funny, but because he didn’t know what else to do. “Talk about costing an arm and a leg.”

The zeraora holding him just grunted.

Without his connection orb, she’d had to cover the whole cost. I saw her place. She can’t be doing much better than me, financially. “Um, thanks for spotting me,” the pikachu said. “I’ll pay you back.”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I could do.”

She keeps saying that. Lyte knew he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to feelings, but even he could figure this one out. She still feels responsible. He was back under her coat; he just listened to the sounds of her walking, of the city, of the occasional breeze. “Hey, Zinnia,” he said, eventually. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” growled the feline. The rumble in her chest made it extra convincing.

“You don’t sound fine,” Lyte said. “And you seemed upset earlier.” He sighed, wiggling his ears against her chest and coat. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Maybe let’s find a bench, in a park, and sit for a bit?”

She didn’t reply. Her footsteps didn’t get any louder, but Lyte felt them more as she stomped along the street.

The pikachu sighed and leaned into Zinnia’s chest. He didn’t want to push her while she was like this; he’d never seen her like this before. I guess it’s like I said. I don’t really know her that well yet. It was unsettling, the way she was acting. Maybe I am a little afraid of her.

After a few more minutes of silence, he felt the zeraora sit down. She pulled him from her coat, and Lyte blinked at the sunlight, squinting around while his eyes adjusted. They were sitting in a park. It wasn’t much of a park—just a triangle of rocks, hardy succulents, and a few leafless trees clawing at the blue winter sky—but it did have benches. Wooden slat affairs, with armrests in the middle so you couldn’t get too comfortable on them. The Lower Halcyon special.

“Okay, I found a bench,” Zinnia said. “Now tell me you’re mad at me or you hate me or whatever.”

This threw Lyte for a loop. She thinks I’m mad at her? Why would she think that? How do I convince her I’m not? He stifled a groan. This was not what he wanted to be doing, not when he just found out he’d have to wait a month or more for treatment and was barely holding himself together. And he couldn’t piss her off, not when she was looking after him. He had to calm her down. Don’t make fun of her. Try to be reassuring. Keep it simple. “Zinnia,” he said. “I’m not mad at you.”

She didn’t buy it. Her ears were angled outward, showing their yellow backs. “Why wouldn’t you be mad at me after everything I did to you?” Zinnia demanded.

Well, that didn’t work. He was way out of his depth. Why couldn’t this happen around Weft? She actually understands people. “Uh…” Lyte re-ran the math in his head, and it didn’t add up. “What do you mean? You’ve been really supportive and helpful all day”—except when you snapped at the doctor—“and last night you basically saved my life. What is there to—”

“I didn’t save it, I ruined it!” the zeraora shouted over him, loud enough to turn some heads.

A passing stoutland gave her a quizzical look, his thick facial fur making it look quite dramatic.

Zinnia glanced around and buckled under the weight of the stares. She hunched over and lowered her voice. “Didn’t you hear what she said? I did this to you.”

“The doctor?” asked the pikachu. He gave Zinnia a blank stare. “I don’t think that’s what she—”

“‘Signs they healed under pressure’,” Zinnia quoted. “Your bones are all fucked up because you were still crammed in my stomach when you got healed.”

Lyte opened his mouth, then closed it. He hadn’t thought about that. He looked at his right foot, at the new deformity he’d acquired. His bright yellow fur was still matted down, showing the ghosts of tightly-fastened straps. “Or it was the splints,” he said, remembering Zinnia and the gardevoir arguing over him. “The cloth one and the ice one. They were just supposed to keep me from getting hurt more, they weren’t supposed to be on when I was healed.”

The zeraora hmphed. “But you only got healed because you were in there in the first place.”

He reached for something nice to say, to reassure her, and came up empty. The pikachu was at the end of his rope. “Can we fucking not,” he heard himself say. “I don’t have the energy to argue whose fault it was. I don’t care. I need to focus on what to do next. And I need you to help, to be here for me, not beat yourself up because you think I’m mad at you or some other shit.” He took a deep breath. Icy claws of regret squeezed at his heart. Well now she’ll definitely think I’m mad at her. Fuck my stupid pika life.

For several long seconds, Zinnia did nothing, stunned. Then she pulled Lyte into a tight hug, squishing the pikachu against her chest and completely covering him with both paws. “I’ll be here for you as long as you’ll have me,” she murmured, voice quiet but plenty loud enough for him to hear while pressed up against her. “I’m sorry I made you worry otherwise.”

Squeezed between smooth blue pawpads and thick yellow fur, Lyte’s breathing was labored from the pressure. What air he could get smelled thoroughly like kitty. Forget physical therapy or whatever, if he could be like this forever it’d be enough. It’d fix him. The pikachu shuddered, his tender cheekspots twinging as he discharged sparks into her fur and paws. Her pawpads soaked them up like a sponge, their cyan glow filling his vision.

Then he was back in her lap, back in the chilly winter air, sitting on her paw. Lyte blinked, looking up to see the zeraora’s drooped ears and apologetic whiskers.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Too much.”

“No, it was perfect,” he said, tipping himself against her lower belly. He spread his arms against her, digging into the short black fur and hugging at her abs. “Just what I needed.”

Hearing that allowed Zinnia to relax at last. She sighed, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her muzzle, and draped her other paw over Lyte’s back like a blanket against the cold. “So, um,” she said, her voice quiet, “are you really not mad at me?”

“I’m really not,” Lyte said, nuzzling his cheek at her belly fur. “It was worth it.”

“Worth it? How?” She let out a little pitiful laugh.

Lyte hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said, truthfully. “That’s just how I feel. I’d do it again.” He didn’t want to examine it too closely. He liked it being worth it.

The zeraora shifted uneasily underneath him. “You didn’t even do it, I did it to you,” she pointed out.

“Well, yes, but—I mean, I’d have preferred you ask—but given the circumstances, it’s understandable,” he said, his words coming out as tangled as his thoughts. Three, I’m bad at this. “You’re clearly sorry about it. Right?”

Zinnia nodded, slowly. “I am sorry,” she said. “It’s not how I… not what…” Whatever she was trying to say, she couldn’t figure out how. The feline slumped against the bench, her yellow shoulder fur sticking up from the neck of her unzipped, oversized coat.

“Then I forgive you.” He looked up the curve of her body and put on what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Problem solved, right?

She didn’t seem to be convinced. The zeraora fidgeted with her paw behind him, tensing and relaxing it. Out of the corner of his eye, Lyte saw her pointy white claws extending, then retracting, over and over.

“You kicked that jerk’s ass. That’s worth it to me,” Lyte continued. How do I say this… “And… I really liked getting to be close to you like that.” He chuckled. “I would’ve liked it more without a broken foot and not drugged out of my mind, but…”

“You shouldn’t,” Zinnia blurted out.

Huh? “Well too bad. I guess I’m weird.” He squeezed at her, as ineffectual as it was at his size. “What, would you be happier if I hated it?”

“No, I… nevermind.” She sighed. “Forget I said anything.” Despite this, her paw went still. She seemed less restless.

The pikachu shuffled to turn himself around, leaning back against her belly and looking out across the park at the old brick buildings on the other side. He draped his arms over her paw, keeping it snug against his front, his left leg folded up against him, his right awkwardly sticking out underneath. It was nice to just sit like this, even if he had less understanding of their relationship than before.

For the first time that day, Lyte was glad he didn’t have his conn orb. There was no pressure to be calling those clinics, planning his treatment, because he literally couldn’t. Well, Zinnia has hers, said a small voice. No, shut up. The point is to take it one step at a time. If I can manage to relax for a bit, then I will.

Instead he focused on everything else; the zeraora behind him, the park in front of him. The fog of his breath, if he breathed out slow enough. The warmth and weight of her paw. The growl of her stomach—hey wait, that’s mine.

The pikachu patted at the massive paw blanketing his front, at one of its zigzag black stripes. “I figured out one reason we both feel like garbage,” he said.

Zinnia’s ears perked. “Huh? Why?”

“Because all we’ve had to eat today is those protein bars. Let’s get some actual lunch.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh! Yes. Let’s.”