The next week found Emmet at the Nimbasa hospital, trying to field questions he simply couldn’t answer.

Prior to that, however, Sneasler had come to him and led him back through the trails of Lostlorn Forest. At the proper depth, she’d yowled into the trees and gotten an answering screech, and they’d regrouped with Gligar and the boy. In the moment, as he had upon their first meeting, he seemed perfectly fine. He was polite and withdrawn, preferring to keep himself next to one of his protectors; between that and the language barrier, it was a silent, uncomfortable wait as first his attentiveness began to wane and then he began to shiver.

When his limbs grew too heavy to shift, Sneasler’s eyes turned to Emmet, searching for an explanation.

“I… do not know.” He admitted, kneeling as close as the Pokemon would allow, but not testing that boundary. “You are correct to be worried. He cannot stay here in this state.”

Sneasler had huffed, something between ‘yeah, no shit’ and ‘you’re no help,’ while Gligar nuzzled in, trying to offer its wings to keep the child warm.

Emmet swallowed. This was closer than he’d expected to get; they didn’t necessarily trust him, but they were tolerating him, listening to what he had to say. It might not be enough, but there was every chance that he wouldn’t get another opportunity to find aid for the child.

“There are people who would know. Nimbasa has a verrrry highly regarded hospital. If you let me take him to a doctor, they will help him.”

As expected, both of the Pokemon tensed up at the suggestion, their knee jerk reactions two vehement denials that surpassed language. That said, neither made to remove him from the scene, and so he stayed his ground. Hands folded in his lap, he let his eyes linger over the little details he could see now: the familiar, if softer, point of his chin and proud slant of his own nose, the rounded cheeks he’d finally been rid of late in adolescence, the small pout his lips naturally fell into. It couldn’t be coincidence. Emmet just didn’t know what it was.

He dropped his attention to his lap, unclasping his hands and then re-lacing his fingers for lack of anything else to keep them busy. “I do not know what else I can do. You are free to say no, but I do not think you would be able to take him there yourselves if you change your minds. Do you think it is safer to delay moving, or to seek treatment now?”

There was a round of furious chattering between Sneasler and Gligar, ending in a long, loud hiss from the latter as it caught a barely-there breeze and rapidly climbed past the forest’s canopy. Sneasler turned her eyes to him again, and he caught one lip begin to lift into a snarl before she purposefully smoothed it out. Without breaking eye contact, she inclined her head, just once-- and promptly followed it with the threat after all, jaws parted to demonstrate that she had his scent, flashing needle-sharp fangs in warning.

Still conscious, if only just, the child’s eyes moved from Sneasler to Emmet, and then closed when human arms folded around him, leading his head to rest upon a shoulder. Sneasler’s demeanor immediately shifted as she crowded in to bump her head against her kit’s in reassurance, and Emmet heard the ghost of a thank you.

“The doctors will help.” Emmet said again, unsure which of them he was consoling.

Sneasler made a small, malcontent squeak and drew back, stilling her own hands. Seeing no reason to make the matter any worse, Emmet turned to depart. His passenger didn’t put up a fuss, silent and still in his hold and, surprisingly, nobody commented on them as he stalked across the city. In hindsight, he knew exactly what they must have thought.

Perhaps he should have seen it coming, but he hadn’t been prepared for the assumption that the child was his.

No. No. It didn’t make any sense, no matter how one looked at it. The boy was somewhere around six; the math simply didn’t work out. The nurse conducting the intake paperwork had visibly refrained from rolling her eyes and scribbled an asterisk into the otherwise blank field.

That judgment softened when the on-staff Axew refused to so much as enter the child’s room, confirming a strong fae presence. It was determined that further testing would be required to narrow the circumstances down, but only after the boy’s condition stabilized.

The actual diagnosis came back with a startling immediacy: the child was suffering from malnourishment. His body simply didn’t have the means to continue functioning, and so it had begun to shut down. A new round of looks passed between staff members at that, but Emmet knew he wasn’t at fault; he couldn’t regret getting involved if it meant the boy was getting the treatment he needed.

The suspicion dropped entirely when it came to light that the child was actually about seven, just small due to the nature of his condition. Taking into account the temporal distortion observed in locales saturated with fae magic, their ages objectively weren’t compatible.

It would have been easy to leave, escaping volleys of night-unanswerable questions and the cycle of renewed distrust, but Emmet found himself lingering. Since he’d claimed not to have any relation, he wasn’t allowed in the same room as the sleeping patient, but he thought it comforting to at least be onsite; that way, if the child woke in a panic, there would be someone on hand who he might recognize.

At one point, he looked out a window and spotted a pink blotch soaring overhead. He didn’t pretend to understand the practical application behind it; he’d seen Gligar above as he crossed the city, and it had seen which building they entered, so it couldn’t be looking for them. The best he could offer was that maybe it was meant to be another threat display.

His wait was all for nothing-- which, in a matter of thinking, was actually a positive thing-- as, by the time visiting hours ended, he'd heard nothing else on the matter. No news may have been good news, but the tension of today had worn at him, which was made clear as he stepped out of the hospital, immediately exhausted. Stomach churning in demand, he decided that his first order of business was to get something to eat, and he’d work the rest out from there. He ended up a block away at a pizza place, and while that sated the immediate issue, a pit still sat heavily at his core.

Malnutrition made sense. The very first things he’d been told about the Entralink were that he wasn’t to eat or drink anything within its boundary-- that he would be uncomfortable, but wouldn’t die of it. That had to be what had happened: the child was stable in the Entralink because he couldn’t starve there, but the human world abided by different rules, leading to the odd back-and-forth that Sneasler had observed. Healthy in one realm, dying in the next. Hopefully the repeated attempts at immigrating hadn’t caused any lingering damage.

That left the matter of medical care. While Emmet wasn’t privy to the entire plan, he’d been informed that the immediate treatment was an overnight stay at the very least, during which the kid would receive fluids and intravenuous feeding. He needed to relay that much to Sneasler, so she didn’t storm the city, but he wasn’t sure whether to return to the forest or wait for her to approach him. Emmet really didn’t want to take another walk out to Lostlorn tonight, but he wasn’t sure how else he might find her… though if Gligar was still circling, he could flag it down and let it carry the message.

He didn’t know what came tomorrow, he realized. He had work, that much was a given, but there were a number of outstanding variables. Maybe he would need to deal with Sneasler and Gligar. Maybe the boy would be deemed fit for release. Emmet somewhat doubted that one, but it was certainly possible.

By tomorrow, there might be an answer as to why they looked so similar.

Emmet was aware that his parents had approached a powerful fairy in order to have him. That was why they were so overprotective: he was their only child, and hard won at that. It had to be related somehow, because a coincidentally identical faelost child was just too much to believe. Any explanation he could come up with didn’t check out, though, always coming down to the same problem: the little boy wasn’t a fairy. If nothing else, today’s events had proven him all too human.

The hasty meal was a silent one. That wasn’t unusual-- most of his dinners were spent absent human company, which was perfectly fine-- but it was the nature of the silence that wore on him. Under an atmosphere both heavy and unbroken by the begging of bugs, that night’s was in the running for the worst pizza he’d ever had, through no fault of the establishment itself.

Not long after he’d finished, as Emmet was staring blankly at the checkered tabletop, something scraped across the window to his left, and while startled, he wasn’t terribly surprised to find Sneasler on its other side. He got up, depositing his trash in the bin on his way out, and met her on the sidewalk.

“He has not had anything to eat in a long time, has he?” Emmet asked, and that was something else he’d been struggling with. It was troubling to think that the child had grown up with a stigma around two core tenants that would keep him alive in the human realm. It was also incredibly sad.

When Sneasler nodded, he mirrored it and went on to explain, “That is the problem. I do not know how familiar you are with this world. Food and water are not optional here. If someone does not eat or drink enough, they will die.”

While she was clearly following along, it was only the last statement that got a marked reaction: the fearful widening of the eyes and a high, worried whine.

“He is alive.” He amended quickly, “He is unwell and requires extensive treatment. But he is alive. I am unsure whether he will be able to return to you by tomorrow.”

Sneasler ran one of her claws over another, nervously sharpening it, and Emmet couldn’t help but flinch when she shifted gears and reached out to paw toward him directly after the fact. It took him several seconds to realize what she was asking.

“I will stop by to check on him. You may have to wait to hear from me, however. I have work tomorrow.”

Her nose twitched in annoyance, but she didn’t try to argue.

Briefly, Emmet glanced upward. Still no sign of Gligar. He’d been trying to keep any eye out since that second sighting, but hadn’t had much luck. It was unnerving and reassuring in equal measure.

With that matter arguably settled for the time being, he looked back to Sneasler. “Do you have any more questions tonight?”

Sneasler huffed, and Emmet had little doubt that she did, just none that she could communicate properly. He asked one in her stead. “Will you return to the Entralink?”

She shook her head and then nodded in a seemingly-arbitrary direction. The message wasn’t horribly clear, but she was confident enough that Emmet chose not to dwell on it. “Understandable. I will ask that you refrain from following me to Nimbasa Central Station tomorrow. Beyond that, I have no preference how we meet.”

She rolled her eyes, but nodded and, without further ado, tore off through the city.

Emmet did much the same, heading immediately for home.

Regardless of precisely what tomorrow held for him, he felt relatively certain that it would be a lot.

---

Emmet had lied to Sneasler, but he hadn’t meant to. When they’d met the previous evening, he’d had every intention of going into work and keeping himself busy.

His plan had been thoroughly derailed when he made the promised detour to check on the child.

Whatever fanciful explanations he’d conjured in the previous weeks, he’d never entertained the idea that the little faelost boy might be his brother.

He didn’t know how it could be possible; his parents had been unable to have children before or after him. He’d grown up under their heavy watches, keenly aware of the fact that he was all they had. The blood test, however, remained unswayed by this appeal to logic, insisting that they were siblings-- and very, very genetically similar ones at that.

It was at that point that he’d made the decision to call out for the day.

Roughly an hour of this spontaneous day off had been spent in the little boy’s-- his little brother’s?-- room, trying to come to terms with it. It wasn’t helped in the slightest by the pale, slow-breathing form on the bed or the myriad of tubes and wires he was hooked up to. Eventually, restlessness won out, and Emmet left to seek answers.

Before he even a chance to hear which of his parents had answered the phone, he said, “You never told me I had a brother.”

There was a long silence and, eventually, he found that he was speaking with his father. “I’m not sure I follow. What exactly are we talking about, Emmet?”

“How can you possibly be unaware?” Emmet scoffed, but forced himself to calm. Untrue as Will’s claim to ignorance had to be, his father didn’t have the benefit of knowing what had gone on over the past few days. “I am at the Nimbasa hospital. Not for myself. For a child who looks like I did and who blood testing claims is my direct sibling.”

Again, it took several seconds for Will to respond. “We can’t have this conversation over the phone. It’s too important to risk not hearing one another.”

“You’re not denying it.” Emmet pointed out, a Greavard unwilling to release its bone.

“I’m not.” His father bit out, “But I’m not saying any more on the matter until I see you in person.”

“Fine.” He snapped in return, “I will be on the next train to Lacunosa.”

He heard Will say goodbye, but, furious, he’d already moved to hang up.

It felt terrible to leave the child alone under these new circumstances, but Emmet wasn’t sure what other options he had. The boy didn’t know any of his Pokemon-- save, perhaps, for Durant-- and likely wouldn’t even notice that he was gone; he’d fallen unconscious during the first leg of their trip, and hadn’t been awake to see that Emmet had been lingering at the hospital to begin with. He settled for writing a note that he wasn’t even sure his maybe-brother could read and tried to convince himself it was enough.

Traveling via the rail system after calling out from his job at the rail system would have been awkward if he hadn’t been busy stewing in his thoughts. As things stood, he noticed a couple of sideways glances, which were all but dispelled when his coworkers caught sight of the look on his face. Wisely, none of them asked.

During its spates above ground, the commute to Lacunosa was a gorgeous one, traveling through the lush White Forest and sparkling bay. Unfortunately, Emmet had no patience for it today, waiting solely for the pale stonework that characterized his hometown. He tried not to be rude as he briskly disembarked, but didn’t have much hope for it. No matter. His personal business was no concern of his employer’s or his associates’.

The sound of his own steps against his parents’ walkway was deafening, and the firm knock at their door was even moreso. This time, his mother was the one to answer, and she sadly looked him up and down before stepping back to admit his entrance.

“I am here now.” Emmet said somewhat unnecessarily, standing stubbornly in the middle of their living room. “You have no more excuses.”

Desi sighed his name. “Would you at least sit down, please?”

He shook his head tightly. He was too pent up for that, a combined effect of the emotional energy he had building up and the effort of containing himself during the commute. It also had a tendency to make him feel… not helpless, but small, a child under the combined weight of his parents’ eyes.

While clearly unhappy with his refusal, his mother didn’t press the matter. Exchanging a glance with Will, she decided that she, at least, was going to have a seat, and neatly folded one leg over the other. Leaning forward to set her chin on her hand, she finally said, “Your father said you were concerned about a strange child. Let’s start with that.”

Oh, like hell were they getting the full story so soon. Not only had they hidden important information from him, but he didn’t want them to find something else to focus on before providing answers.

“A child turned up ill. We look verrrry much alike, so people assumed we were related.” All true statements, if somewhat out of order. “I helped him to the hospital for treatment. Their testing concluded that we are siblings.”

It was hard, but he told himself he didn’t begrudge them the moment it took to process all of that.

“This child just… turned up?” Desi asked, dubious.

It took a dedicated effort not to make a face at the blatant attempt at derailing them. “Not the point. Having seen him, I do not believe the test concluded incorrectly. Dad did nothing to claim otherwise when we spoke. What is the meaning of this?”

She grimaced and tilted her head to the side in thought. Eventually, with a heavy sigh, she said, “We begged the fae for a gift, but everything has its price.”

A number of things snapped into startling relief at her words: their overprotectiveness, yes, but also the lifelong preoccupation with fairies and what often felt like a vendetta against them. If they’d had a child stolen from them once, of course they would take pains not to risk their second chance.

His mother… hadn’t stopped speaking, though.

Why hadn’t she stopped speaking?

“Novarum was playing a cruel trick; it asked for our firstborn in return for a family. We outsmarted it. There are ways to… increase the odds of having multiples, and so we were able to ensure that it got its payment without risking our own child. We did everything we could to keep you with us.”

…

No.

Nope.

Absolutely not.

That was worse than the thought that the boy represented a failed pregnancy before or after Emmet. Worse than the idea that a fairy had spirited his sibling away as part of a debt. Nothing Emmet could have come up with matched the idea that he only stood here because his parents had sacrificed another one of their children for him-- that they had sacrificed his twin for the crime of having been born first.

“What do you mean,” He said through gritted teeth, “’Your own child’?”

“They… didn’t belong to us.” Will said, “Before they even existed, they were Novarum’s claim.”

“That’s not possible. We were twins. Split from one egg. Either both of us belonged to Novarum or neither of us did.” Because that had to be why they were so closely linked in terms of genetics. Fraternal twins were as similar as any other siblings, but identical twins went beyond that by virtue of having temporarily been the same being. It fit, and that fact burned.

“That’s not how it works, Emmet.” Desi murmured, sounding faintly exhausted. “It’s not how the fae operate.”

He was hearing none of it, though.

“Why would you make this deal knowing it was inhumane?”

His father sighed heavily, guilt etched into his face, “You’ll understand someday, when you have your own kids.”

No he wouldn’t. Regardless of whether or not he opted to have children, he would die before he found himself in a position to agree with what had been done to-- to his brother. A child so unaccustomed to his own realm that his system had shut down when he was returned to it. A child--

Emmet stilled, realizing something. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind, but it was especially important now.

“What was his name?”

“We--” His mother’s voice broke on the syllable, and after a second to collect herself, she tried again, “We couldn’t, Emmet. We couldn’t risk it. Getting attached would have hurt even more.”

He drew a deep, deliberately even breath. For just a second, he’d thought it was going a different direction-- that they might have withheld a name as a gesture of protection, to safeguard a child growing up among fairies, where it might be used against him-- but no, again, his parents had swerved at the last moment, onto the wrong track. It had been a selfish act, meant only to spare their peace of mind.

Again, Emmet was glad he hadn’t seated himself. It made it easy to turn and leave.

Objections sounded from behind him, but he wasn’t having it. He only paused when he realized that he’d overlooked something important.

“Call Nimbasa General. Tell them to release the seven-year-old faelost to me. I will handle this.”

He didn’t linger long enough to hear whether or not they’d agreed to his demand.