Work Text:
The light in the hallway woke Emmet up.
He had been vaguely aware of the front door opening, and some of the pokemon making some kind of commotion, but the light kept him from avoiding whatever was about to happen by going back to sleep.
His apartment was silent now. The pokemon in the other room had quieted down and no more doors had opened, so Emmet took a moment to look around his room before making any decision about what to do.
Cable, his eelektross, was asleep on the right side of his bed, likely unaware of anything happening at the moment. Lavender, the zubat Skyla had gifted him a year ago, was on the ceiling fan, also asleep. He smiled as Cable curled up in his sleep.
Nothing had happened yet other than the lights turning on, so Emmet turned to his left to look at the clock on his bedside table. It was a small alarm clock, modeled after an old tank engine and painted bright blue and red. Ingo bought it when they were children, and Emmet had stolen it shortly after starting middle school.
The clock was blank. Two possibilities passed through Emmet’s mind. It had either broken or run out of power, or he was having another nightmare.
He'd been having nightmares for a while now. They originally focused on his brother's disappearance, people reacting to it and blaming him and what-if scenarios and the like. But recently, after he'd slowly started adjusting to this lonely new normal, his dreams had taken a different approach.
Now, they tended to alternate between his brother haunting him, begging to know why Emmet was so quick to abandon him, and berating him for not being strong enough to get back on his feet fast enough. It was a cycle of 'you didn't love me enough' and 'you were too attached'.
The only assurance he had during these nightmares weren't real, aside from calling Elesa in the morning after waking up, was the lack of identifying features. He could never make out faces, never knew what day it was, etc. He could see his pokemon clearly, and that was usually it.
The clock just proved to Emmet that whatever was happening now was probably just the start of some new nightmare.
Of course, it could just be Elesa. She dropped by at odd hours sometimes, usually after a stressful day at the gym, and he would find her passed out on his couch, with his snacks open and somehow already stale.
If it were a break-in, Emmet would have heard the sounds of any of the pokemon not currently in his room making quick work of the intruder. There weren't many people in Nimbasa who could take down most of his and Ingo's teams at once, so he didn't really worry about that.
He sat up in bed for a few minutes, waiting to see if there were any changes in the environment that would reveal who was in his apartment. He counted about three minutes of silence before he got out of bed and carefully crept towards his bedroom door, opening it. Past the hallway, to the right, he could make out a dark figure collapsed on the floor, hunched over Wisp, Ingo's chandelure.
Emmet slammed his door shut and rushed back to bed. He chose to ignore the voice that sounded a bit too much like Ingo's calling after him, along with the way Cable perked up after hearing it, and put all his focus towards falling back asleep.
This had to be a nightmare of some kind. There was no other explanation now. The clock wasn't working, Ingo wasn't really here, none of what was happening was real. He could just go to sleep and wait it out.
Or he could, if his door didn't just creak open.
“Hey,” The voice sounded an awful lot like Ingo, but it was just too quiet. “Emmet, I know you're awake. Look.”
Emmet didn't want to, but he still turned his head to get a slightly better view of the nightmare. Wisp was floating cheerfully behind his brother, allowing Emmet to catch a glimpse of his brother's clothes.
He was still wearing his work coat, which made sense given that he had been wearing it when he disappeared, but the sleeves and bottom looked like they'd been shredded. It had faded from black to a grey-navy sort of color, and there were a few pretty bad tears on the torso with darker stains around some of them that Emmet was certain he wouldn't like to think about any further.
Under his coat he was wearing something that looked sort of like a hoodie with a symbol on it that looked vaguely familiar to Emmet, like something he would've seen in an old book or something. An odd choice for Ingo to wear, but Emmet wasn't going to give the nightmare much thought. He shut his eyes and pulled his blanket over his head.
He could hear a sigh that sounded way too much like his real brother for comfort and footsteps approaching his bed. The footsteps stopped after a second and Cable started flopping around on the floor, causing Lavender to start making noise too. Emmet heard Ingo stumble and stifled a laugh. He appreciated his pokemon attempting to protect him, even if this was just a dream and they were making it harder to fall back asleep.
Eventually, the noise quieted down and Emmet felt something tugging at the blanket. He heard his brother's voice again, but this time he was somehow even quieter. “Emmet, this won't be any fun for me if you refuse to cooperate.”
That… was not what he had been expecting. What was even more unexpected was a soft “Aha!” followed by fabric rustling and what sounded like small bits of metal clinking against each other. His grip on the blankets loosened and they were pulled off, bringing him face to face with his brother.
Emmet was able to see his brother's face rather clearly, which was weird considering that he had been sure he was having a nightmare. Ingo also didn't seem upset with him like he usually was in Emmet's dreams. Instead, he just dangled a key chain in front of Emmet’s face.
“I found my keys!” Ingo whispered with the closest thing to a smile on his face that Emmet had seen in years. Emmet stared blankly at his brother. He was prepared to sleep through all of his insecurities being dragged back to the surface of his mind, not whatever this was.
“I am Emmet. I am having a verrry weird nightmare.”
Ingo paused at that and his smile vanished. Emmet flinched, worried he’d messed up and that his brother would start reminding him of all the ways he could have helped find him or how disappointed he was that Emmet was still alive.
”Do I appear frequently in your nightmares?“ Emmet didn't answer that, turning himself to look at the ceiling. “Apologies if I made you uncomfortable, that was not my intention. Do you have any kind of proof or something similar that would make you think you're in a nightmare?”
“The… you… no, it…” He took a few seconds to get his words together. “The clock. It isn’t working. It never works in my nightmares.”
Ingo leaned over to see what he was talking about. “The clock you stole from me ages ago?” Emmet nodded, preparing himself to explain how these recent nightmares went, but Ingo interrupted him.
“Have you checked the batteries? Or where your joltik might be?”
Being asked that made him feel stupid. Of course he hadn’t thought of that, he was half asleep and too tired to deal with what he thought was going to be an awful interaction. Thinking about it now, this whole night was probably just him coming off as an awful brother who didn't want to welcome his twin who's been missing for two years and-
“What would you like for breakfast in the morning?”
“How is that related to the current conversation?”
Ingo shrugged. “You look exhausted. I am too, if it makes you feel any better. I think we would both be better equipped to hold a meaningful conversation in the morning.”
Emmet nodded along. His brother made a good point, and he could feel himself finally starting to doze off. Ingo sat up from where he was crouched on the floor and started to walk towards the door.
“Oh, just so you know,” Ingo paused in the doorway and turned around to look at him. “I'm going to be sleeping on the couch tonight, since all of my pokemon are in the living room and also my bed is probably too soft. And sorry for stressing you out tonight over a joke I thought would be funny.”
Emmet tried to tell his brother that it was fine, but wasn't able to come up with anything so he lazily waved his hand in Ingo's direction.
“Good night Emmet, I'll see you in the morning.”
He mumbled a response and closed his eyes, listening to his brother close the door and walk away as he fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, the lights in the hallway were still on.