to know the unknown

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WHO Sefton, blessddrgntamer, swatwithdragons and motherlanders.
WHAT ^P_KM_NT_RN_R Sefton needs a place to go after ecoterrorism goes way too far out of hand in Hoenn. He retreats to find his half-sibling in Blackthorn, whom he only knows about through the news and his mother's stories.
WHERE Blackthorn, in the Johto region.
WHEN Early 1994. Sefton is 11½, Lance is 20.
NOTES Continues over in the live-action pokémon musebox.

The road was beginning to give way, path widening into something more respectable and well-traveled. He was so close. So close to safety and finally finding the other half of his family. Not that his mother had ever let him down or did less than her best to raise him, but something had always been missing as he had grown up. Maybe he would find it here.

For that, Sefton was almost grateful to Teams Aqua and Magma for their insane plots that were literally destroying the Hoenn region in an effort to make it more habitable for pokémon. Who cared if all the people living there wouldn't be able to adapt or survive all the rapid changes as long as the pokémon were happy, right?

Sefton grunted disdainfully and picked up the pace. Glalie hovered behind him, matching his speed and watching his back. They were both exhausted from the journey, evading the authorities on the off-chance they would simply deport him back to Hoenn if they discovered him, not to mention fighting off all the wild Pokémon in the area that wandered too close. At least the nudge in the back of his mind usually gave them advance warning...

They were almost there. Just needed to make it toward the gym, announce his intentions to seek shelter with the clan...

"So close," he breathed.

Comments

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At least the emotions he was picking up helped Sefton keep from getting too aggravated. The doctor wasn't being mean, much as he wished Naoki would get mad at him so that he could return the favor, but was still unbending in his pursuit of doctor-y tests.

"Yes," he said slowly, unsure and obviously just biding for time instead of actually answering. After a moment, he muttered, "No. But it can't be that bad."

[motherlanders]

"Maybe not," Naoki said patiently, "but I'm still going to need a baseline, so I can tell how healthy you are usually. Or if you're below the baseline for your age and size at all."

He lifted an eyebrow, wondering what else the boy would come up with or whether he'd give in now.

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Sefton bit at his lip. There wasn't much else he could counter with, not without simply turning tail and running, and that wasn't even close to being an option right now. He took a deep breath and gave a morose nod.

Instead of trying to fight further (or possibly to stall for time), he asked, "Where're my pokémon?"

[motherlanders]

The measuring look Naoki gave Sefton probably said enough that the man guessed what he was doing. "They're down at the lodge on the grounds," he said simply, without calling the kid on it. "There's not enough room in the mountain to have pokemon up here, so they're taken care of separately, where space isn't an issue."

He held out a hand down the corridor, in the direction of the exam rooms with specific uses--such as those x-rays he'd been talking about. "Shall we?"

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Huffing quietly, Sefton nodded. He would follow Naoki into the x-ray room if led, but didn't feel comfortable leading when he didn't exactly know where he was going. Getting lost in here seemed like a bad idea.

[motherlanders]

With a faint smile Naoki preceded, though it wasn't his habit. He wasn't there to lead, but to support. (And then, sometimes, that's just what people needed.)

The tests took a while. Naoki put Sefton through all the ones he felt the boy would be willing to stand--that is, all the ones that didn't require someone else touching him--with the catscan being last, given it necessitated Sefton lying down for it and, frankly, the boy looked exhausted.

When Sefton inevitably feel asleep Naoki ordered the nurses to leave him there. There was no need to move him out of a room rarely used, after all.

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The need for stillness inside the scan was what did him in. Only a few moments after he had been rolled into the machine, with only its quiet hum and the murmur of emotions around him, his eyes drooped to a close and he was out.

Dreams didn't come to him so much as a deeply restful mishmash of impressions. It wasn't until several hours later that he finally awoke, shivering slightly in the cold of the test room, and looked around in bleary confusion.

"'lo?"

[motherlanders]

It took a few moments, but a young nurse poked her head through the door, blinking. "Oh. Just a minute!"

Before Sefton could say anything she withdrew, and he'd probably hear her footsteps and the clack of a phone. A few minutes later Naoki came to the doorway, eyes crinkling in that eye-smile of his. "Sleep well?"

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By the time Naoki entered, Sefton had already sat up and was pawing at his eyes sleepily. "Uh-huh," he murmured. "How's it—s' the thing done?"

[motherlanders]

"The DNA test isn't, yet, though the computer's nearly done analysing it. The catscan is, though." There wasn't a chair in the room, but Naoki fished for one outside the door and dragged it in, closing the door firmly. If Sefton was paying attention he'd be able to sense knowingness, anticipation of something worth regretting (of a child's innocence taken too early), the faint satisfaction of a hypothesis proven right.

Naoki planted the chair across from the bed and leaned forward, eyes on Sefton but not unkindly. "Sefton, are you psychic?"

[polarization]

All of Naoki's actions simply led to Sefton waking up sooner than he anticipated, with a small amount of dread settling in his stomach. He watched warily, licked his lips, then eventually looked away.

"Why?" he asked. Did it matter if he was or not? He didn't mean to use his power - it wasn't like he would hold it over people or anything!

[motherlanders]

"Because that's what your brainscan told me," Naoki said patiently, "and it also told me that you don't quite know how to control it. Is that true?"

It was almost a rhetorical question--Naoki knew it was true, because of the sections of Sefton's brain that had lit up under the scan, and how they'd lit up. He knew it was true because of the way Sefton shied from contact (abused in fear of his power?), or shied from too many people, as Lady Clair had told him while Sefton was sleeping. (The hair helped too. Only someone who was psychic or biologically susceptible to pokemon energy would have that kind of unnatural colour.)

But there was no sense of distaste or fear from the doctor, either. Psychic powers usually came out young, and the young could almost never control it without training. It wasn't unusual or surprising.

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"B-but..." Sefton hesitated. He had never really admitted his power to anyone, although he had definitely gotten some strange looks for his hair and countenance before. Despite the lack of persecution Naoki was radiating and the evidence against him, he was still nervous; even if the doctor wasn't against it, what if it frightened his father, and he didn't want Sefton because he was different? His hands curled around his pant legs, tightly. "I... maybe."

[motherlanders]

"Has anyone ever hurt you because of them?" Supremely gentle, here, making himself feel as open and trustworthy in as many ways as he possibly could. He needed to know the extent of Sefton's issues before he could treat him--before his family could help him.

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Sefton blinked, turned to regard Naoki, blinked again. "No," he said, somewhat lost by the question. "I mean..." Of course, there had been a few times when he had been younger, when his powers had been newer, and he'd gotten annoyed at something or other. He would bump into people or push them and they would retaliate because they would be angry just like Sefton had been. It wasn't their fault.

"No," he repeated, trying to backpedal. He broke eye contact to stare at his hands. "Nobody."

[motherlanders]

"Yes?" Naoki prompted after a beat of silence, still patient, still gentle but unyielding. "What were you going to say?"

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"Nothing," insisted Sefton. "S' not important."

[motherlanders]

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" Naoki suggested mildly, but with an undercurrent of reproof. After all, if it wasn't important the boy wouldn't have started to say it.

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Sefton huffed, curled his legs up to his chest. "'Cause nobody's wanted to hurt me, o-okay?"

[motherlanders]

"But?" Naoki prompted gently, because the words had a note of evasion and he would push the boy as far as he could.

[polarization]

"But nothing," he said petulantly. He wasn't particularly angry at Naoki, but he was quickly becoming scared. Would he make Sefton tell him what, exactly, his power did? Why he hadn't been able to hug anyone since he was four? Why his mother had pulled him out of school before he'd barely started? Why he was such a weirdo?

[motherlanders]

"Sefton--" Naoki started, still gently, but was interrupted by the sound of running footsteps and a hurried knocking on the door followed by it being thrown open.

"Doctor Akiyama," the nurse gasped, her eyes wide and face rather pale. "Doctor, his DNA test has finished and you need to see this."

Her sheer urgency made Naoki automatically stand and throw a furrow-browed glance toward Sefton. He beckoned the boy before following after her, down the corridor and into the office in question.

[polarization]

That announcement suddenly filled Sefton with ominous dread. What in the world could that possibly mean? After a moment of almost-shocked hesitation (and some thankfulness that the conversation had been cut short), Sefton hopped off the bed and trotted after Naoki.

[motherlanders]

The nurse pointed toward the computer on the desk at one end of the office, facing the doorway leading into a laboratory, her hand shaking slightly and disbelieving eyes flickering toward Sefton as he entered after them. Frowning and wary, Naoki bent over the computer (in such a position to prevent Sefton from seeing it), but really, it only took a moment to see the results. It took a few moments more to really take them in, in which time the doctor's eyes widened and he stood frozen in sheer surprise.

"It can't be right," the nurse said, eyes darting again toward Sefton, her disbelief and uncertainty clear. "I'll--I'll run it again."

"There's no need for that," Naoki said quietly but with steel, without turning around. There was no need to run a test again just because one didn't want to believe it. But oh, this made things complicated. "Go and get Lady Ibuki and Lord Hideki, if you please. And tell no one." There were people in the clan who wouldn't like this. They wouldn't like this at all.

With one last, darting glance the nurse skirted Sefton and vanished through the doorway, and with a slow breath Naoki straightened and looked toward Sefton. His face was unreadable, but his thoughts? Oh, he was worried. Not the kind of worry that said one feared for another's life, but it was worry nonetheless.

[polarization]

Sefton stood immediately out of the way of the door, silently watching the interplay between doctor and nurse. The tension, disbelief, worry and apparent need for secrecy kept him highly on edge and he could only imagine scenario after scenario, each substantially worse than the last.

Once he got to the very bottom of the rung, he whispered, "S'... s' he... dead?" The worst of his fears: coming all this way and having no family to rely on, nothing to do but be sent back without someone to take him as their responsibility, not even mentioning the fact that he might have had an entire other half of him that he would never, ever get to meet. His heart clenched painfully with each breath he took.