Chapter Text
Sometimes it felt like only days since Ingo had disappeared. After a time, the days start to blend together and you can't remember if the last meal you ate was this morning or last week. When you haven't slept in days and you can't remember if it's Thursday or Sunday.
The flat just felt so empty. Sure, Emmet had his and Ingo's pokémon to keep him company, but everything felt so quiet without his twin brother sitting in the living room, cooking breakfast or loudly complaining about the upstairs neighbours who never seemed to understand that you can walk without stomping everywhere.
The flat was a mess. A horrible mess. But Emmet was even worse. He hadn't brushed his hair in weeks, dark circles encased his eyes making him look like a Patrat, and his shirt hung awkwardly off his skinny body. He hadn't worn his coat in months, if it even fit anymore. It felt so wrong to see it hung up by the door without Ingo's coat next to it, but it felt even worse to wear it.
Emmet only ever wore his coat to his job at Nimbasa City's Battle Subway, so putting it on now just made it worse when he turned to see only empty space where Ingo should be standing.
Emmet had heard the rumours. Whispers and glances and nasty comments thrown around by people in the city.
"He's always been the more aggressive of the two, I think he got rid of him so he could run the Subway himself."
"I heard he got involved with Team Plasma."
"He'd never just give up his position, something terrible definitely happened."
For the first few months, Emmet tried to stay cheerful. They were right about one thing at least - Ingo would never give up on the Battle Subway. He loved it too much. That meant he would definitely come home. After all, he'd left his work, his brother and all his pokémon behind. Nothing on Earth could make him do that.
He'd come up with excuses - answers to the barrage of questions from curious and suspicious trainers.
"He fell verrrrry ill, he should be back on his feet soon. He's overseas visiting friends. He had some business to attend to in another town." But eventually, people began to see through his lies. Emmet didn't know any more than they did, but he cared oh so much more than they could ever believe. Ingo was Emmet's everything. His brother, his best friend, his entire family. Being without him was worse than being without his left arm.
He wasn't sure how much longer he could go on alone. The only thing that kept him going was his belief - his firm, stubborn belief - that he would find out where his brother had gone, and he would bring him home. He had to.
Emmet didn’t leave the flat anymore. Elesa visited every few days with food and other necessities to keep him going, and every time she begged him to take a break. To go to work, to walk around the city, even to just join her for a coffee at their favourite café. But Emmet never did. He refused to waste even a minute that could be better spent searching for Ingo. It’s all he had been doing since his brother had disappeared, and he was running out of ideas.
Emmet woke up to the usual pain in his back that he always got after falling asleep at his desk. It was the only way he woke up now; he hadn’t slept in his bed for weeks. Emmet had always managed to sleep quite well through his stress - he fell asleep within minutes and woke up just as quickly - but despite this he never once felt rested.
For a while soon after Ingo had vanished, he kept having nightmares about watching his brother get ripped from his side by an invisible force, leaving him powerless to do anything but watch. But even those had stopped at this point. These days, sleeping was more like pressing the standby button on the television than actually resting.
A piece of paper had become stuck to Emmet’s cheek while he slept, which he pulled off and placed on top of a messy, unorganised pile of similar papers, all loaded with scribbles and writings about whatever he had been researching when he wrote them. He’d read through the pile several times, but still nothing new came up.
A dull knock sounded from the living room, followed by the front door opening and someone stepping inside. It was Elesa. She’d stopped announcing her presence after she’d woken him up from his unwilling sleep; she didn’t want to interrupt what little rest he got. Emmet stood - his knees protesting painfully - and let himself out of his room to find Elesa already putting away groceries in the cupboards. She turned as he walked in and gave him a small smile.
“Anything new?” she asked. There hadn’t been anything new for a long time, and Emmet was sure that at this point she was only asking to be polite. He shook his head.
“Nothing.” He moved silently to one of the bags and began to put away the food inside. He pretended not to notice the look Elesa gave him. He’d spent every waking hour for months searching for Ingo, not even taking the time to cook or tidy the house, so him now taking the time to help Elesa was concerning to say the least. Elesa put down the cans in her hand and walked over to Emmet, pulling him wordlessly into a hug. He hugged her back. He expected tears to come, but nothing happened.
Finally, Elesa pulled away, but she didn’t go back to the food.
“Emmet, I know what you’re going to say,”
“Then don’t say anything.”
“Ingo wouldn’t want you to sit around all day moping.”
“No, he would want me to find him, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“You’ve looked everywhere, you’ve followed every possible lead. I don’t want to give up on him any more than you do, but where else is there to look?”
Emmet said nothing for a while.
“At least come back to work,” Elesa dropped her tone to be more gentle, “you both love the subway, Ingo would hate to see it abandoned. And the battle requests just keep piling up.”
Emmet still didn’t say anything, but made a show of putting more cans away in the cupboards.
Elesa was right, there was nowhere left to look. Emmet sat back down at his desk and stared helplessly at the pile of desperate notes and studies cluttering his desk. He absent-mindedly started sorting through them, trying to place them in a neater pile that would take up less desk space, only glancing at the notes on each one before moving on to the next. This one held notes about missing person tips, this one was notes about anyone who had seen Ingo in the days before he had disappeared, this one... why had he made notes about legendary pokémon? Whatever.
He continued throwing papers aside until they were in an even messier pile than the one they had started in. Emmet sighed and leaned forward, his head resting against the painted wood of the desk, and closed his eyes.