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His first week as a detective is… tense. Sylvester wasn’t expecting a welcome parade or anything—he’s from the wrong family, and on the wrong side of forty to be considered ‘spry’—but the cold glances from his fellow officers don’t exactly bode well.
Leo tells him not to worry about it, though, and Sylvester trusts his judgment.
This trust is immediately broken when his friend leans over the bullpen coffeemaker and says offhand, like he’s only just thought of it, “Hey, now that you’re all settled in we should get you your partner Pokémon.”
Sylvester splutters, burns his tongue on his coffee, and coughs out, “This is another dumb hazing ritual, right?”
Leo laughs at him.
It’s not another dumb hazing ritual.
She’s dragged into awareness by a searing flash of light and a loud, annoying voice.
“Swinub’s not too tough to train, and it’s sense of smell is unmatched,” it’s saying from behind her. “Not very strong, though, unless you want to evolve it.”
“That’s okay,” says a bluish-blob thing—human, male, smells of wool and bitter smoke, “I don’t think we’ll be doing a lot of battling.”
“You’ll take her, then?”
“I don’t really get a choice, do I?” He leans down closer to her, so she can make out dark eyes and pale, scarred skin. “Guess we’re stuck together, Swinub.”
Unimpressed, she sneezes a plume of ice in his face.
It’s not that Sylvester dislikes Pokémon. He got along fine with his parents’ partners (mostly by staying out of their way), and sometimes he’ll leave food out for the strays near his apartment.
Admittedly, he’d like them a lot more if they didn’t summon landslides or tidal waves or beams of concentrated sunlight. He, unlike some other Lafayettes, prefers solving his problems without setting them on fire. So when he comes home to a pile of snow and a dozing Swinub in his bed, he decides to sleep on the couch.
(He lies awake and thinks about bodies charred into ash and boiled fat, thinks about veins ruptured with blackened, frozen blood, and then tries not to think about anything at all.)
She doesn’t know much about humans, but she knows they’re horrible.
She remembers being small and feeble and safe with the Herd; remembers clean-bright-snow and the pain of something hard colliding with her skull.
She’d woken to a whirlwind of scent, noise and color; days spent dragged around by tall hairless shapes with rough hands who shoved foul things at her snout and barked orders she didn’t understand. She was thrown into a battlefield with massive, snarling creatures, and when one sank its teeth into her haunch she writhed and squealed and spat frost until the light swallowed her again.
Then the void-sleep; drifting in a black, scentless river.
“This one’s a dud,” one of the humans had said. “Too distractible, doesn’t train well. Can’t last two minutes in a battle, either.”
“Should we release it?”
“Nah, too much paperwork. Just stick it in the back, it’ll get pawned off on some poor bastard eventually.”
(Those memories are hazy, though. It must have been a long time ago.)
Sylvester thinks the Swinub’s warming up to him.
She follows close at his heels—when she’s not snuffling underneath chairs or digging through the trash—like a curious but ill-tempered Roomba. He learns how to interpret her body language, differentiating ‘it’s too hot’ and ‘more treats’ from ‘there’s a dead body in the washing machine’. As for the actual ‘training’ portion of Pokémon Training… he’ll get around to it. Eventually.
“You let that thing walk all over you,” Leo tells him, rolling his eyes at Sylvester’s frozen filing cabinet. “Just put it in it’s Pokéball.”
“I can’t only let her out when I’m at a crime scene,” he protests. “It’s not right to keep her in a tiny little space all the time.” He shudders. “I can’t imagine being trapped like that.”
Leo claps him on the shoulder. “That’s what I like about you, Syl. You’re too nice for your own good.”
“My fatal flaw,” Sylvester agrees dryly. Behind Leo’s back, the Swinub is stealing his eclair off the desk.
Her trainer, she discovers, is unusual for a human. He’s much quieter than the others; he rarely raises his voice and never kicks at her. He takes her to new places, and feeds her dried berries when she finds strange smells. Sometimes he’ll lightly brush his fingers against the fur on her back; she tries to press her snout to his hand to encourage this behavior, but he always flinches away.
Overall, kind of a pushover.
But he’s watchful and a quick learner, and most importantly: he pretends not to notice when she pilfers human food.
He’s easy enough to live with most of the time. This morning, however, he’s tearing across their shared den muttering nonsense like “going to be so late,” and “where’s my stupid hat?”
She’s not too interested in silly human problems, so she shuffles further into her cozy new shelter. It’s soft and dark, and smells pleasantly familiar. She rumbles contentedly until the thump of boots gets closer and a sliver of light invades her hideaway.
“Oh,” the human says, and then chuckles. He moves the Trainer-Smell-Shelter so it’s sitting above her eyes. “You hold onto it, then. Suits you better anyway.”
The first time they’re forced into a battle, all of Sylvester’s rationality abandons him.
It’s nothing like the handful of battles he’d had with his parents’ Pokémon, who’d been confident and untouchable, barely in need of direction at all. He doesn’t know the words to yell, doesn’t know what the half-blind piglet can even do—and then, it’s too late to do anything.
She’s so small. Level five, they’d said, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
The crack of Swinub’s body against the wall stops his heart. The gangster’s Sneasel flexes its claws, raises them to take another swipe, and his partner is just a lump of fur crumpled on the filthy pavement.
He should return Swinub to her Pokéball, should toss some money at the thug and hightail it out of the narrow alley. That’s what even the most incompetent Pokémon Trainer would do. Instead he darts forward and sweeps Swinub into his arms, and as he presses her into his chest he can’t feel her breathing over the thunderous staccato of his own heart.
The gangster and his Pokémon give him identical sneers. He hears “the hell are you doing, man?”, but all he can do is press his back to the wall and stare stupidly at the three-foot-nothing creature with knife-hands that’s probably going to slice his stomach open.
The moment crystallizes into fragile clarity. Sylvester realizes he might just have the most pathetic death in Lafayette family history.
“Giga Impact,” someone interrupts, and then a dragon plows into Sneasel at Mach-1.
Leo meanders into the alleyway like he’s on a pleasant evening stroll, and Sylvester’s knees almost give out with relief. The thug must recognize the Chief of Police, because he blanches violently and scrambles away, leaving his Pokémon trapped beneath Salamence’s talons. Leo doesn’t spare the criminal a second glance.
“Geez, Syl,” he says with a look halfway between affection and pity. “Can’t take my eyes off you for five minutes, can I?”
Sylvester uncurls and holds out Swinub with shaking hands. “Leo—Leo, she’s—“
His friend rolls his eyes. “She’s only fainted, you big baby. Come on, I’ll walk you to the Pokémon Center so you don’t get jumped again.”
She wakes to the tickle of antiseptic in her nostrils and a warm weight on her back.
“See,” says the man who smells of sugar and dried blood, “she’s perfectly fine.”
“Yeah, I know—sorry, it’s just—I thought—“
“Could’ve been a lot worse. You’re lucky I was there.”
Trainer Smell’s voice cracks. “Thanks, Leo. I… I owe you one. Again.”
“I’ll put it on your tab.”
Trainer-Smell-Friend leaves. The hand on her back settles a little heavier, fingers carding through the fine bristles.
“That was… kind of embarrassing, huh?”
She snorts indignantly.
“No, not you—I’m the one who froze up. We’ll work on it, I promise.” Trainer Smell laughs, but the sound is joyless. “I doubt anyone will be there to bail us out next time. Maybe I should get a membership to one of those training centers. Or start carrying a knife.”
He digs into his coat pocket. “Anyway, I got something to help you feel better.” She perks up as he holds out something aromatic. “Probably not the kind of truffle you’d prefer, but on my salary—hey!“
She stops paying attention to his words and lunges at the treat, gobbling up the bitter-rich-earthy-sweet-smooth confection. It’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. She wriggles in delight for a moment, then snuffles at the pocket that produced such a divine gift. Her trainer yelps as she scrabbles at his stomach.
“Stop—no, I don’t have any more, come on people are staring—“
Trainer Smell picks her up and huffs at her. She huffs right back, sprinkling his beard with frost.
They glare at each other for a moment before Trainer Smell breaks into a smile. “You really liked that one, huh?” He shakes his head. “Truffles, I’ll have to remember that.”
* * *
“You know, if you leave the force you’re going to have to give her back.”
Sylvester scoffs.
“No?” Leo asks, a knife-edge of challenge. “She’s a police Pokémon. City property.”
“As if she’d work with anyone else,” Sylvester says, watching the city property in question slide face-first into a wall. “Besides, she was sitting in Loans for years before I got her.”
The ice rink at Riverview’s city square is filled with chattering tourists—and currently, a belligerent Swinub—but it’s still a nice place to grab coffee with a friend. Sylvester hopes that even after he leaves, he and Leo can still meet here from time to time.
He turns to face his soon-to-be-former boss. “I’ll pay out whatever the department wants for her.”
Leo meets his gaze, unmoved. “Or you could just stay.”
Sylvester feels his temper stir. “What, are you trying to use my partner to hold me hostage? I already explained why I’m leaving. The decision’s made.” He takes a steadying breath. “Come on, Leo,” he tries, more gently, “don’t be a hardass about this, of all things.”
Leo’s quiet at that, rolling something over in his mind. “Fine,” he concedes with a crooked smile. “Consider it a final courtesy for my star detective.”
Sylvester raises his eyebrows. “Courtesy, huh? I hope you’re at least half as nice to my replacement, or you’ll never shake those favoritism allegations.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Leo says innocently. “Besides, I could never replace you.”
Cheeks burning, Sylvester ducks his head. He’s almost grateful for the scuffle that breaks out on the ice rink and pulls his attention away.
“Sorry,” he says, hearing a familiar squeal. “Better take care of this.”
He leaves his coffee with Leo and slides over to the knot of tourists. “Let me through, please—yes, that’s my Pokémon—“ Sylvester pushes his way through to find a man sprawled on the ice, clutching his face, parka dotted with blood. And before him, hackles raised—
“Truffles!” She jumps at the call, scurrying to hide behind Sylvester’s leg.
“That damn thing tripped me!” The alleged victim spits out, lurching to his feet. “It broke my nose!”
Sylvester rolls his eyes. “Trust me, if your nose was broken you’d be crying a lot harder.” He bends down to pluck a cracked phone off the rink and tosses it to the man. “Maybe you should avoid texting and skating from now on. Come on, Truffles.”
They turn to leave, but are stopped short by the unmistakable sound of a Pokéball opening. Sylvester and Truffles share an exasperated look.
“Snivy, use Leaf—“
“Ice Shard,” Sylvester cuts him off, not bothering to turn around. The outraged squawking behind him is all the confirmation he needs that the battle’s over. “Good work, Truffles, go ahead and Return.”
Feeling more smug than he probably should, he strolls casually back over to Leo and accepts the proffered cup.
Leo smirks. “Crisis averted?”
“Yeah,” Sylvester answers, running the pad of his thumb fondly over the Pokéball’s engraving. “Nothing we can’t handle.”