Chapter Text
Dear Tim,
I can do better if you give me a chance. I will always have a place for you to stay.
Happy birthday,
Love, Dad.
Tim continues to stare at the letter in his hands—at the invitation for him to go to Ryme City to stay with his father that he hasn't seen in years. They barely even talked to each other, yet here he is in the detective's apartment after receiving news that he had been in an awful car accident.
He's gone permanently, and Tim isn't sure how to feel...especially after finding the invitation to come and live with him here in Ryme City that he'd never had a chance to send. There's a train ticket included that he's not so sure what to make of. He's not sure if he would have used it if the invitation had reached his place, but just maybe...
It's too late now.
Tim sighs, moving to the next room—a room that was meant to be his, judging by the tall Pikachu ears and Pokémon battle posters that cover the walls. It's his childhood room, perfectly reconstructed to make it feel more like home.
He'd made the decision to stay with his grandparents instead and his father must have decided to keep the room like this anyway, frozen in time for a son who would never get off the train. Tim can only sit on his childhood bed, gripping the train ticket like a lifeline. Like somehow, it could be a time machine to the past and he could go back and make everything right. But did his father really deserve it? His mother had passed and his father had drowned himself in work and grief when they had both been equally hurting by the loss in their family.
But just because his father had been hurting too, it didn't mean he could pack everything up and move to Ryme City to be a detective and practically cut his son out of his life.
Floorboards creak, bringing Tim back to a reality he doesn't really want to face. For so long, he had believed his father didn't care, but now...maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe it was his fault for not getting on the train. Maybe if he had just stepped on, things would be a lot different now.
There's a more important matter at hand. He knows he'd been alone upon entering the apartment, but maybe he left the door unlocked by accident and someone had come in. He gets up from his bed, wiping stray tears away with his arm.
"Hello? Someone there?" he asks cautiously, looking towards the door. Weird...it hasn't been opened.
"Hello...?" he asks again.
"Ow, that's a sprain," a voice whispers, not exactly in response when a lamp is knocked over. The light switches on and a silhouette appears on the wall, giving away the fact that someone is here, never mind the fact that they've already given themselves away by talking.
"Whoever you are...I know how to use this," he warns, grabbing a nearby stapler.
He holds the stapler out for good measure. If someone really is here, maybe they'd mistake it for the sound and look of something much more menacing than a simple stapler and be wise enough to leave.
The last thing he expects to find is a Pikachu that peeks out from behind a mini set of drawers, ears perked and looking at him curiously.
"A Pikachu? How did you get in here?" he questions uncertainly. The apartment door had been locked; he'd had to use the keys given to him by Lieutenant Yoshida to get in. There's no way he could have gotten in through a window; the apartment is too high up, and there had been nothing the Pikachu could use to climb that he saw.
But probably the strangest thing about the Pikachu so far is that he's wearing a little hat in between his ears.
The yellow Pokémon sighs, climbing up on top of the drawers.
"I know you can't understand me, but put down the stapler, or I will electrocute you," the Pikachu says.
Wait...
Tim stops himself from moving any closer and he blinks.
The stapler drops from his hands, clattering to the floor.
"Did you just...talk?" he asks, unsure if it's a question that he should even be asking.
"Whoa...did you just understand me?" the Pikachu asks. He literally just asked a question.
Tim backs away slowly, trying his best not to fall over, but it's difficult with the way his legs are shaking.
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait...that is heavy eye contact right there, you heard me."
"N-no, I didn't," Tim stammers, hardly even able to get his own words out. This can't be happening, it just can't...
"Yes, you did! Oh my God! You can understand me!" the Pikachu is practically screaming now—screaming English, and Tim doesn't know what else to do apart from lifting his hands up to his ears to try and block the human speech that's somehow leaking from the Pikachu's moving mouth in words that aren't just simply pika, pika...
"Stop!" Tim begs, but the Pikachu's ears just droop and he talks again.
"But I've been so lonely!" he whimpers, his eyes big and round as if he thinks that acting cute will somehow calm him down when in reality, it accomplishes the exact opposite.
"Just stop talking, you're a hallucination!" Tim shouts.
"You're a hallucination," the Pikachu counters, like he's offended that Tim thinks he isn't real.
Then he squints, as if to try and get a closer look at him. Tim backs up, not even realizing how far he's gone until he bumps into the couch.
"Wait...you. It's you!" the Pikachu exclaims like he's just remembered something, absolutely ecstatic for some reason that Tim can't even begin to place. "I know you!"
"What...how?" he sputters, barely able to make sense of what's happening. It seems like the Pikachu recognizes him. There's photos of him in the apartment, but from when he was younger.
Tim has no idea what the Pikachu is talking about. How is it even talking in the first place? Was it some kind of experiment gone wrong?
No, that can't be it. He's just losing it. That's it, he's lost his mind after being stuck in his little cubicle day after day doing insurance work.
"You have to help me. I know we haven't seen or talked to each other in years. I was never there for you and you probably hate me, but I need your help. I'm in serious trouble."
What the heck is the Pikachu talking about? What does he mean they haven't seen each other in years...he's never seen this Pikachu before in his life. Truth be told, he hasn't seen that many Pokémon in his life ever since he'd decided to stay in his hometown and do insurance, but he's positive he's never seen this particular Pikachu. He's positive that he's never seen any Pokémon that wears a detective hat that's oddly small enough to fit on its head.
"Okaaaay. I'm just gonna...go. Yeah, I'm leaving," Tim says, turning around to head for the apartment door. Maybe he should have listened to that girl he'd met on the way inside, claiming that she smelled a story right under her nose.
Maybe this was it, and she'd been right.
Or maybe he's just completely lost it. That has to be it—that's the most logical explanation and he's sticking with it. He turns around to start leaving, but the Pikachu is very insistent.
"Tim, wait! It's me!" the Pikachu exclaims, rushing behind him and hopping up onto the couch. "Please, just listen!"
Tim stops in his tracks, his ears ringing. He feels like he wants to throw up, but he holds it in the best that he can. He doesn't want to listen. He shouldn't be able to listen, but for some reason he can, and the Pokémon just said his name.
His hand is close enough to the doorknob to touch. He could open the apartment door and run for his life, never looking back. He could just forget today ever happened, and forget that he had ever run into a talking Pikachu of all things.
Against his better judgement, he turns around slowly to stare back at the Pikachu. The fluffy Pokémon tilts his head to the side hopefully.
"How do you know my name...?" Tim wants to demand, but it comes out in little more than a whisper. He'd never even mentioned his name, yet the Pikachu knows what it is. His first thought is the envelope with the invitation inside that had his name written on it, but it had looked untouched before he'd opened it, and it had been sitting on a dresser too tall for Pikachu to reach. Pokémon can't even read, can they?
So how? Now he doesn't know what's crazier—the fact that the Pikachu is talking, or the fact that it somehow knows his name. How much crazier and weirder can this day get? First, his friend takes him out to try and catch a Pokémon for a partner—a Cubone—but he'd failed miserably. Then he gets news that his father is dead. Then he gets on the train, only to have his face be licked by a Lickitung. Then he comes to his apartment and finds some weird, purple gas that he'd breathed in and nearly choked on.
This Pikachu shouldn't be talking. At all. Yet here he is, talking to a Pikachu. He can understand him as if he were talking to just another person. Is it the little hat on his head giving him some kind power, or the weird, purple gas that he'd accidentally breathed in? Maybe he should go to the doctor when he gets back home just in case...
"It's me," the Pikachu repeats. He pauses for a moment so his words can sink in, but Tim is still clueless.
"Who...?" Tim asks slowly, unsure of what the Pikachu is trying to 'tell' him. He shouldn't be trying to tell him anything. He's a Pokémon. The one thing he's sure of when it comes to Pokémon is that they can only say their names...right?
"Who are you?" he asks, finally managing to finish the question...because this thing can't be a Pikachu. He has to be dreaming, but when he pinches himself, he's still in the apartment and staring at the yellow Pokémon with wide eyes.
Maybe he should really be asking what instead of who.
"Harry. Your dad. I'm Harry," the Pikachu says slowly and firmly, as if that will help cement Tim's belief. If anything, it only makes Tim further question his sanity.
Tim blinks. He stares and the Pikachu nods, a smile spreading like he's assuming that Tim finally understands, or that he finally recognizes him through the body of a Pikachu after stating the impossible.
He doesn't. He doesn't understand at all, even though he can perfectly understand the talking Pikachu before him that's claiming to be...
His father? He hadn't recognized it at first, but now that he thinks about it, the voice coming out of Pikachu does sound just the slightest bit familiar...
"I know it's a little hard to believe, but—"
'Harry' doesn't even have the chance to finish.
Tim does the only thing he can think of and faints promptly on the spot.