Work Text:
Tate is an only child and it bothers him. His birthday is a morose affair, in spite of the balloons and streamers his parents faithfully put up. Shouldn’t it have been a happy memory, filled with memories of new life and tiny fingers curled into chubby fists?
His mother always brings it up, when the festivities are over. “Life would have been so different, if your twin had been born,” she says with a veneer of placidity, folding her hands neatly in her lap. His father doesn’t say anything and avoids the conversation all together, of which Tate is grateful.
Vanishing twin syndrome, even after reading as many articles he can get his hands on, fascinates him as much as it unnerves him. His mother has recalled the story several times - once, there were two heartbeats, two bodies and when the next ultrasound came around, there was only one. He knows that it’s possible from a biological standpoint, but lengthy explanations do not put his mind at ease where his twin could have possibly vanished.
“Please don’t blame your mother too much,” his father unexpectedly tells him one day, after a grueling practice battle between them; the usually steely gaze in his eyes has softened. “You will never know how badly we wanted both of you.”
(This twin did not exist, will never exist, and yet it is everywhere Tate tries to go.)
--
He becomes the gym leader for Mossdeep when he turns twelve, and if there's a better feeling of accomplishment, he hasn't found it yet. Sometimes Hannah and Samantha gang up on him and pinch his cheeks, threatening to tell Flannery about his not-so-secret crush on her, and sometimes his losses cut sharp, but the walls of the gym make his shoulders slope and his breathing calm.
The fall he turns thirteen, though, things change. They’re not things normal people would notice - only espers would sense the subtle shift in the atmosphere. The trainers and Tate are all eating lunch together, when suddenly he feels a presence that adds up to one too many. At first, he thinks it’s Blake or Maura - or both, for all he knows - playing a trick on him; while nowhere near as brash as Samantha and Hannah, they're not above being mischievous and occasionally use it to great effect, like warping their auras so much, they split. But when he asks, he receives blank stares instead of answers.
“What are you talking about, Tate?”
“We’re not doing anything.”
“We’ll show you.” Both of them close their eyes, and Tate feels two more presences come into the room, before fading away. The one still lingers, and goosebumps prickle on his arms.
“Really, you guys,” Tate begins. It comes out less disapproving, more unnerved.
“Tate, there’s no one else except us eight in here,” Hannah says, and even she sounds wary.
“But don’t you guys feel that? There’s nine there. I swear there is.”
All he’s greeted with is uncomfortable silence and with a sigh, he mumbles about having an off day before returning to his sandwich, uneasy.
--
A week and a half later, the nagging feeling doesn’t dissipate and his trainers decide that a vacation to the beach is in order - he’s an honest, hard-working gym leader and even he deserves a break. While Hannah and Samantha pelt Blake and Maura with balls of sand, Tate stands at the shoreline, watching the tide ebb from his feet, Solrock silent by his side. He roams up and down the beach, picking up shells smooth and cool from the water and putting them in his pocket to give to his mother.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a lone figure standing at the shore, dark hair flapping in the breeze - but when he turns there’s no one there.
Tate dismisses it as an inopportune coincidence.
--
Tate jolts up with a start, shaking and drenched with sweat, but just as suddenly as the fear sinks upon him, it evaporates and leaves him in a confused, tired stupor. He can recall jumbled bits and pieces of the dream he had mere seconds before; there was a room of white, an ethereal figure he couldn’t reach, and he knows that the dream ends badly but how so, he doesn’t remember.
He eyes the clock wearily. One in the morning isn’t a great time to wake up, but it's more forgiving than the other times he’s woken up from nightmares this week.
He pads into the bathroom to get a drink of water and partially to calm himself down. He knows that he’s the only one up at this hour, but can't shake the feeling that he isn't alone.
--
“That was a good match,” he says, stooping into a bow; the girl in front of him laughs dreamily, admiring the shiny badge she’s just received.
But just as the girl turns to leave, an image flickers beside her, and he starts, “Wait - ”
The girl turns in the entrance and the mirage vanishes. “Huh? You say something?”
“It’s nothing,” he forces out when the silence becomes too much, and the doors echo too loud when they slam shut behind her.
--
Mt. Pyre is desolate and beautiful, and Tate lets the stillness swallow him up. It’s been three months since he’s first felt the presence; usually it’s weak, a remnant of something past but there are other times where it’s so suffocating, he wouldn’t be surprised if he turned around and saw that he was dragging a body behind him.
Today is an example of the latter. Perhaps it’s foolish to go to a graveyard in hopes of getting relief, where he can feel everyone’s spirits swirl around him. Tate isn’t fond of ghosts, either; he isn’t afraid of them, but shadow ball attacks usually are the reason why he loses matches. Today, though, he's desperate enough to make an exception.
“How nice,” a voice croons from behind. Tate turns to see a woman with wrinkles carved deep into her face, smiling down on him. “It’s not very often young folk like you come out here. The spirits will appreciate that.”
But the moment he steps toward a row of shrines, he realizes that he can’t detect a single aura - except the other one, of course.
He isn’t sure what’s more scary: the fact that it had happened, or that he still is trying to convince himself it’s all happenstance.
--
Tate has displayed psychic prowess since a young age. He knows when his parents are coming home without fail, well before they even leave work, and their thoughts and emotions are more or less his own, fuzzy and dense in the shadows of his psyche. They have learned to keep all of this under control - too strong, and Tate becomes nauseous and his head pounds for days after. His father is harder to read; his mother is not. It's how he knows his mother thinks about the second child more often than she doesn’t.
But lately, their auras have become thin and harder to sense. One day, his mother opens the room to his door and he barely catches himself from falling off the bed.
“There you are!” she says cheerfully, giving her son a kiss on the forehead; “I was getting worried when I hadn’t heard a peep from you - you weren’t sleeping, were you?”
“No,” he says, confused. “Didn’t you and Dad come home just now?”
It’s her turn to look puzzled. “Tate, we’ve been home for almost thirty minutes.”
“You have?”
“Look at your clock; you’ll see that I’m right.”
The time reads 5:30, just as she says.
--
“I’m absolutely fine!” he protests to his parents, while the rest of his trainers in his gym stay silent and impassive. “There’s nothing wrong with me, not - ”
“Tate,” his mother begins in a gentle voice, taking her son’s hands, “Tate, honey, you’re only going to be gone for two months - your father will happily take on the challengers but in the mean time, you need to focus on becoming well again.”
“I’m fine,” he grits out. He wants someone to get it. His mother’s eyes water and her face eventually crumples. He's never found any incentive in causing trouble for his parents, and the sight of his mother so distraught makes his stomach twist and mouth taste sour. But at the same time, he’s angry and scared that no one else is feeling this presence, no one else is seeing the fleeting dark-haired person, that no one else noticed his disappearing abilities until now, that no one else -
“You have to believe me,” he whispers. “I’m not making these things up, I promise. You have to believe me.”
“Tate, all of us have psychic abilities, just like you do,” Maura tells him, sounding as happy as he is. “But none of us have seen or felt what you keep describing. We really do want to believe you, but…”
Maura trails off, but he can hear the rest of her sentence, and the pit in his stomach only digs deeper.
--
He doesn’t celebrate his fourteenth birthday.
Later that night, Tate asks his mom, “If the twin had been born, what would you have named it?”
The pause lasts a full minute before his mother closes the book and answers him. “It was too early to give you two names but… if it was another boy, I would have liked to name him Anthony. If it was a girl, Liza. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” he tells her as he goes to his bedroom, hoping tonight he won’t dream of a white expanse with a phantom at its end.
--
He can no longer feel the gym trainers’ auras, nor can he feel his parents’ thoughts.
The dreams still remain, and he feels lighter. Under certain catches of light, his skin looks more transparent than opaque.
Tate isn’t bothered by this as much as he should be.
--
Up until now, he has never closed the distance between them. This time, though, it’s different.
Footsteps echo around him, yet when he steps his feet don't connect with anything solid. Tate is centimeters away from this being - is it a girl? - and his fingers almost brush against it just as he’s waking up -
--
“You’ve had it hard, Tate.”
- Except that he doesn’t wake up.
Not in the place he wants to be, at any rate.
He knows that she’s behind him and the impulse to face her consumes him, but something deep within in screams don’t turn around, because it will be better if you don’t.
Her hand snakes its way into his. It’s soft, small and colder than anything he has ever touched.
Tate turns around anyway.
Time freezes. She's beautiful: a near copy of himself, but with longer hair, bigger eyes and freckles on the bridge of her nose.
Her hands are ice as they squeeze around his neck.
“Don’t you think it’s my turn to come out now, Tate?” she asks sweetly. The expression on her face is anything but.
Tate suddenly remembers just how the dream ends.