#this just goes back to that post i made about being upset that pkmn stopped doing cameos in gen 8

[claitea]

would they ever let lear or any of the rest of the pokemas originals appear in other games. the chances are so low but they're too fun to just leave in the mobile gacha game :(

[sage-nebula]

PKMN - A Treasure Twofold

Notes: This fic was supposed to be posted on September 25th, and as such is now officially six days late. Nonetheless, late or not, here it is. I can only hope it doesn’t disappoint.

This fic takes place about one year after Genesis. It’s not strictly necessary to have read that one before reading this one, but Fulbert is introduced there, and that fic is referenced multiple times throughout this fic, so it is recommended. Either way, it’s up to you.

As two more additional notes: Jigsaw is the (headcanon’d) name of the linoone at Sycamore’s lab, though in this fic she’s still a zigzagoon. She likes to go off on adventures. And as far as money goes, remember that the cost for things in the PokéWorld is quite a bit different from ours, so if a price seems absurd, it’s a bit more reasonable there than it would be here.

And with that said . . .

Over the past two and a half months, Alan had been trying to save money.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had been saving pocket change for longer. The Professor gave him money sometimes so that he could buy little snacks or toys when they went out shopping, but so far Alan hadn’t seen very many things he wanted to buy. (And anyway, he didn’t think it was very necessary. The Professor said he was earning his pocket money by working hard, but Alan thought that it was enough for him to be able to live there with the Professor, and have a real home, so the money wasn’t really needed. But he didn’t know how to say that without sounding ungrateful and upsetting the Professor, so he just accepted it and kept quiet.) But two and a half months ago Alan had his sixth birthday, and on that day, he had gotten presents. He had never gotten presents for his birthday before; in fact, he had never done anything for his birthday before, and had never even known when it was. He knew what birthdays were, because other people back in the village had them, but while he had known that he was getting bigger just like all the other kids were, Alan had never known when his birthday was, and so he had never done anything for it.

But the Professor had figured his birthday out, and two and a half months ago, he had made a nice dinner, and a birthday cake (it was big, and had ice cream to go with it and everything), and Alan had gotten presents. There were different presents from a few different people, but Alan’s favorite of them all was definitely his lab coat, which had come from the Professor himself. Alan only ever took it off when he absolutely had to; aside from his home, it was the best thing he had ever gotten, even better than the charizard hoodie the Professor had given him for Festival de la Vie last year. Alan was extra careful to take good care of it.

As wonderful as his lab coat was, though, it presented a little problem. The Professor knew when Alan’s birthday was, and had made him a nice cake, and gotten him presents. But Alan wasn’t sure how he was going to return the favor. He knew when the Professor’s birthday was, because he had been smart enough to ask near the end of his own, but though he had been saving his pocket money for two and a half months so that he could get the Professor a present, he still wasn’t sure what to get him. The Professor had everything; he already had a lab coat, and tons of books. None of the lab equipment needed to be replaced. All of the pokémon were present and accounted for in the lab’s garden, and even if they weren’t, Alan wasn’t sure if he could catch a new one just yet. Alan knew how to do it---the Professor had shown him---but according to the Professor, people weren’t allowed to become trainers and catch pokémon until they turned ten. And even if they were allowed, Alan wasn’t supposed to leave the lab by himself yet, because it was dangerous for someone as little as him to wander around the city alone. That was what the Professor said, anyway, the last time Alan did, and Alan didn’t want to upset the Professor like that again.

So as far as getting the Professor a present for his birthday went, that presented several big problems. But part of being a good lab assistant meant being able to figure out how to solve problems in addition to recognizing them, and after thinking on it for a while, Alan felt that he had figured out at least a couple workable solutions.

The first problem---the problem of what to get the Professor, now that he had some money saved up and could afford to buy something---could be solved easily enough by going to the stores to find something to buy. Although Alan didn’t know what to buy right now, he knew that if he looked around the stores long enough, he was bound to find something. Of course, the second problem (that he was too little to go shopping by himself) stood in the way of that. He would have to find an adult to take him to the stores first. Asking the Professor was out of the question, because if he went out to buy the Professor a present with the Professor right there, it would ruin the surprise. He had thought about asking Sophie, but Sophie had left on vacation a week ago, and wouldn’t be back until the end of the month. She wasn’t around to ask, and by the time she came back, it would be too late. And while he could ask the Professor’s parents, there was a risk that they would tell the Professor what he was up to, and even if they didn’t, they lived in a whole other city. Alan didn’t know if they would be willing to come all the way to Lumiose to take him shopping for a birthday present, and he was afraid that asking them to do so would be asking too much.

All of this meant that his list of available adults had dwindled down to just about no one, but there was still one more person that he could think of to ask. In truth, he felt that this person was as likely to say no as the Professor’s parents were (and perhaps even more likely), but he had to try. This person at least lived in Lumiose, and so he wouldn’t have to travel very far to take him shopping. And if he was mad, well . . . it’s not as if grumpiness was out of the ordinary for him. Alan thought he could---no, if it was for the Professor, he could definitely handle it.

So when the Professor was out in the garden tending to some of the pokémon (some of the newly arrived spearow had attacked the scatterbug, and so the Professor had put the spearow in a time-out and was tending to the scatterbug’s wounds), Alan climbed up onto the counter to get his PokéGear, opened it up, and scrolled through the contacts until he found the right name and number. He sat like that for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest so hard that it hurt a little, and squeezed the PokéGear in a sweaty grip. He took a deep breath, and then---before he could chicken out and close the PokéGear---he hit the green “Call” button, and brought the PokéGear up to his ear.

The phone rang for what felt like a couple long moments. Alan pressed his lips together, and resisted the urge to kick his feet back against the countertop. However nervous he was, he didn’t want the Professor to hear and come inside too early. He clenched his fist around the denim of his pants leg, and after the fifth ring, the person on the other end picked up.

“This is Fulbert.”

“. . . Hi,” Alan said, or tried to, at least. He opened his mouth, and tried to get the word out, but all he managed was a little sound that sounded more like a squeak. That wasn’t good; talking was important, especially in situations like these where the other person couldn’t see him, and he needed to get better at it. He was getting better at it. The Professor even said he was. But his heart was racing, and it felt a little hard to breathe, and he didn’t think he was supposed to be using the phone like this, and even if Fulbert was always grumpy, he was also sterner than the Professor was. What if he didn’t just get mad that Alan was asking him to go shopping for a birthday present, but was also mad that Alan called at all? What if---would it be better if Alan just hung up and pretended this never happened?

“Hello?” Fulbert said. Alan’s squeak hadn’t been loud enough for him to hear. Alan had a feeling it wasn’t. “Hey, if you’re going to say something, speak up. I’m a busy man; I don’t have time for games.”

He was busy. He was too busy for games, and probably too busy to go shopping for a birthday present. But even as Alan brought his knees up to his chest to try and settle his nerves, and squeezed the PokéGear so tightly it hurt a little, he knew he couldn’t give up. He was doing this for the Professor. He had called Fulbert for the Professor. It was for the Professor, for the Professor . . . he couldn’t give up when it was for the Professor. He took another deep breath, trying to draw in as much courage as he could to do what had to be done.

“Okay, if that’s all, then nice tal---”

“H-Hi,” Alan said again, and he thought that maybe Fulbert heard him this time, because he stopped talking mid-sentence. “It’s me.”

“Pipsqueak?”

“No,” Alan said, frowning. “It’s Alan.”

“Yeah, I know,” Fulbert said, a little impatiently. Alan hugged his knees to his chest. “Where’s Augustine? Does he know you’re using his phone? Put him on.”

“Um . . .” Alan glanced over at the doors that led out to the garden. Thankfully, from what he could see through the glass, the Professor wasn’t headed back inside just yet. “I can’t do that. Listen---”

“Why not? Is he hurt? Did something happen?” Fulbert demanded. His tone was so sharp, but that---that was okay. It’s how he always was, and Alan knew that. “Why didn’t you call 112 instead of calling me? Come on, pipsqueak, I know he taught you---”

“N-No, it’s not that. The Professor’s okay, he’s fine,” Alan said.

“Then what are you calling me for, and why can’t you put him on the phone?”

“Because---” This was it---the moment of truth, now or never. Alan swallowed, and took another deep breath to try and clear his nerves. “I need---I---I want to ask you for a . . . for a favor.”

“A favor? What kind of favor? Why are you asking me instead of Augustine?”

“Because it’s for him. It’s a surprise,” Alan said. He was still hugging his knees, so he wiggled his toes in lieu of kicking his feet back against the countertop.

“A surprise?” Fulbert repeated.

“Mmhm. You know how---well, the Professor’s birthday is coming up soon.”

“Yeah . . .”

“And I want to get him a present.”

“A present?”

“Yeah. I’ve saved up some money, thanks to the Professor giving me some, and also Jigsaw bringing back coins with her Pickup ability. So I want to get him something, but I think I’m probably still too little to go out in the city by myself---”

“Damn straight you are.”

“---and I don’t want to tell the Professor, since that would ruin the surprise. And I’d ask Sophie, but she’s not here right now because she’s on a vacation.” Alan gripped the PokéGear a little more tightly. “So I was wondering if . . . if you would take me.”

Fulbert was quiet for a moment before he said, “Kid, you know this isn’t necessary, right? You don’t need to get Augustine anything for his birthday. He won’t be upset if you don’t.”

“I know,” Alan said. “But he didn’t have to get me anything for mine, either, and he did, so . . . so I want to get something for him, too.”

“You do, huh. And this is important to you?”

“Yes.”

Fulbert sighed on the other end of the line. Alan could picture him scrubbing a hand down his face, and over his shaggy beard. Finally, he said, “All right. If I’m remembering rightly, Augustine has that seminar in Aquacorde Town this weekend, doesn’t he? On Saturday?”

Alan’s heart lifted at what sounded like a tendril of hope in the air. “Yes.”

“Do you know what he’s planning to do with you while he’s at the conference?”

“Um . . .” Alan glanced at the doors leading out to the garden again, but of course, there wasn’t an answer to be found there. Normally Sophie was asked to babysit him, in the rare times he needed a babysitter, but . . . “I don’t know. Sophie’s on her vacation, so I think he might ask his mom and dad to watch me, but they live far away, so . . . maybe he’ll ask his friend Meyer? I . . . I really don’t know.”

“Well, I do,” Fulbert said. “I’m going to call Augustine in a few hours and ask to borrow you for some lab work on Saturday. I’ve got some information that needs cataloguing---you can help me out with that.”

“But I---oh,” Alan said, and he blinked as he caught on.

Fulbert sounded pleased---or at least amused---on the other end of the line. “Exactly. Your memory being what it is, Augustine won’t question that I want to borrow you for that. While he’s at his conference, I’ll take you out to buy whatever it is you want. At the end of the day I’ll bring you back, and he’ll be none the wiser. Sound good to you, pipsqueak?”

Alan smiled. “Yeah. Thanks, Fulbert.”

“Don’t mention it. Now hang up, and go do whatever it is you normally do. I’ll call Augustine in a few hours. Make sure he picks up.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“Right. Bye.”

The line went dead. Alan closed out of the phone menu on the PokéGear before he snapped it shut, and returned it to its previous place on the counter before he hopped down.

The plan wasn’t foolproof, he thought. Fulbert sounded confident, but the Professor didn’t exactly like to let Fulbert “borrow” Alan for things like this. Back when they had first discovered that his memory was weird (it was a good thing, the Professor had said, but Alan thought that there wasn’t much of a difference between being special and being weird, and that this was just something else that made him different, and maybe explained why no one had liked him back in the village), Fulbert had talked about how useful Alan could be because of it, but the Professor had seemed pretty against his ideas. “Alan isn’t a tool for anyone to use,” the Professor had said, even as Fulbert had gotten mad and said that wasn’t what he meant, so the Professor should, “stop assuming, thanks.” So there was a chance that the Professor would get mad at Fulbert wanting to “borrow” Alan again, even if it was for research purposes, and that he would say no and have someone else babysit Alan on Saturday instead.

But even if it wasn’t foolproof, Alan thought that he still had a good chance of making it work. Even if the Professor didn’t want to listen to Fulbert, he usually listened to Alan. If Alan said that he wanted to help Fulbert, that he wanted to learn with him for the day, then maybe the Professor would be okay with it. If Alan asked really nicely, then he thought there was a good chance the Professor would say yes. Of course, the idea that he would be lying to the Professor about what he was doing wasn’t a nice one, and it actually made him a little uncomfortable, but . . .

Well, it was for the sake of getting the Professor a nice birthday present. Since it was for the Professor in the end, Alan was sure that it would be all right.

After having known him since their first year of university, Fulbert never expected Augustine Sycamore to be anything but difficult when it came to reason and good sense. Even so, he never ceased to be frustrating about it.

Convincing Augustine to let Fulbert babysit the kid had taken about forty-five minutes of difficult phone conversation. The second Fulbert said that he wanted to borrow Alan for some information cataloguing, he had been met with a “no” hard enough that it was like Augustine had slammed a door in his face. It was insulting, was what it was; Augustine acted like Fulbert wanted to use the kid like a lab rat or tool, as if Fulbert was the type of person who would ever do something like that to begin with. After so many years of friendship, Augustine should have known better. After nearly twenty-six years spent on this earth, Augustine should have also had the reasoning ability to realize that the kid helping Fulbert out with his research was really no different from the kid helping Augustine with his. They had different fields, sure, but they were both scientists. And anyway, Fulbert was there when Augustine found the kid, just about. He hadn’t been gung-ho about the unofficial adoption (and he was still positive that he must’ve missed something when searching for the kid’s biological parents, so he still ran more searches every now and again), but he had still been a part of it, just like Augustine himself was. He felt that gave him just as much a right as any to borrow the kid for research purposes every now and again, whenever he wanted.

Not that he was responsible for the kid in any way, shape, or form, of course. He wasn’t. That kid was Augustine’s, 100%. Fulbert had no hand in raising him, nor did he want one. He was just saying, it wasn’t like he had ever hurt the kid in any way, nor had he ever demonstrated a desire to hurt the kid (or any kid), and it was more than a little insulting that Augustine would act so protective over him where Fulbert was concerned. That was all.

But while Augustine had refused him at first, Fulbert’s insistence---combined with the kid himself chiming in and saying that he wanted to help---had led to Augustine giving in at last. And that was what led to Fulbert standing in the foyer of Augustine’s home-slash-lab at nine in the morning, staring down at a kid that he was pretty sure would inspire the owner of Boutique Couture to call the police if she saw him.

“What,” Fulbert said, as he jabbed a finger in the Alan’s direction, “is that thing on your back?”

Alan blinked, but realization dawned in his eyes as Fulbert finished his question, and without missing a beat he removed one of the straps from his shoulders so that he could swing what he was carrying around to his front.

“It’s my backpack,” he said, but Fulbert thought that “backpack” was being used loosely in this case. Rather than a standard bag, the “backpack” was a decently sized komala plush, though Fulbert caught sight of the zipper at the top of the log portion even before Alan unzipped it a little to show him. “It opens at the top here, and it can hold a lot of things. It’s neat.”

“Not to mention cuter than anything, wouldn’t you agree?” Augustine said, as he joined them in the foyer. He thankfully looked ready to go, which was a feat (in Fulbert’s mind) given that his seminar was due to start in an hour. He ruffled Alan’s hair when he was near enough to do so, and Alan pulled his backpack strap back onto his shoulder.

Fulbert gave Augustine a flat look. “Sickeningly so,” he said. Augustine stuck his tongue out at him, and Fulbert gestured at Alan with one hand. “You’re still on this? Look at him. What in the world have you done to him?”

“What?” Augustine said, indignant. “He’s cute!”

Aside from his komala plush backpack and lab coat (which Fulbert almost told him to leave at home, given that there was no need to wear a lab coat when shopping, but that would have blown their cover), Alan was wearing ordinary blue jeans and one of those cutesy, punny little kid t-shirts. This one was perhaps a bit subtler than most, but as Fulbert looked at the illustration of the cheeky combee and the word “yourself!” that was printed beneath it, it took him only a second to get it. He looked back at Augustine in disgust.

“‘Combee yourself,’” he said. “Really, Augustine?”

“It’s cute,” Augustine insisted. “And the proceeds for that shirt went to combee conservation research. It was for a good cause.”

“Shirts like that are a crime against humanity. And are those light-up shoes?”

“Yes! I’m impressed you noticed.” Augustine beamed as Alan tapped one of his feet against the floor, and Fulbert stared in revulsion as red lights danced along the soles. “Actually, I wanted to get him the kind that lit up and squeaked whenever he walked, but unfortunately, the shoe store was out of those.”

Fulbert watched in silence for only a second more before he said. “I’m calling child protective services. Come on, pipsqueak, let’s go.”

“Wait!” Augustine took Alan by the shoulder before he had a chance to take a single step, and when Alan looked back at him, said, “Have a good time today, okay, Alan? And remember that if you want to stop working at any point, you’re free to do so. You don’t have to do any work that you don’t want to.”

“I’m not going to overwork him,” Fulbert said, irritated.

Augustine ignored him. “You know my PokéGear number, don’t you?”

Alan nodded. “Yes.”

Augustine smiled, and ruffled his hair. “Good. Call me if you need anything at all, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“For fu---rogadier’s sake,” Fulbert said, switching words halfway through as Augustine shot him a warning look, “you’re acting like you’re sending him to a sweatshop.”

“With the way you work, sometimes I think your lab might as well be one,” Augustine said, and Fulbert rolled his eyes as Augustine continued. “Make sure he takes a break once per hour---preferably once every thirty minutes, for at least fifteen minutes at a time. Make sure the room is well-lit, with even light distribution---”

“Since when do kids come with instruction manuals?” Fulbert demanded.

“Since I lived with you for four years in university and lost count of all the times I returned to our dorm to find that the only light source was your laptop screen,” Augustine said. “That’s terrible for your eyes, and even worse for his since he’s so young. Make sure to have all the lights on at all times.”

Fulbert heaved a sigh. “Fine, yeah, okay. Don’t you have a seminar you’re going to be late for?”

A barely controlled wince crossed Augustine’s face before he said (with a note of defensiveness Fulbert did not miss), “I’m not going to be late---”

“It’s in Aquacorde Town and starts in---less than an hour, now,” Fulbert said, after a quick glance at his watch. “You’re going to be late. You’re the widely acclaimed Kalosean regional professor and, at nearly twenty-six years old, you’re going to be late to your own damn seminar because you’re giving me a verbal instruction booklet on how to look after a damn kid for a day.”

“That lecture you just gave me was longer than anything I told you about how to look after Alan,” Augustine shot back. “But yes, fine, I’ll get going.” He turned back to Alan and said, “Remember, call me straightaway if you need anything. I promise I’ll answer no matter what. Okay?”

“Okay, Professor. I will,” Alan said. “Good luck with your seminar.”

Augustine smiled, and patted Alan on the head again. His smile shifted to a sterner expression when he looked back at Fulbert. “Remember to give him regular breaks, keep the room well-lit, and don’t smoke around him. I mean it, Fulbert.”

Fulbert returned the look. “Go to your seminar, Augustine.”

Augustine made a face at him, but nonetheless slipped his shoes on, and then ushered Fulbert and Alan through the door ahead of him. They parted ways in front of the lab; Augustine took a taxi that had been waiting outside (and really, Fulbert pitied that poor taxi driver, because if it wasn’t for him Augustine might have stalled for even longer---but then, if the taxi driver started his fee from the moment he pulled up, he might have been fine with waiting for hours more), and once the cab was a good distance down the road, Fulbert turned to Alan.

“So, pipsqueak. Where do you want to go?”

Alan opened his mouth as if to answer, yet then closed it again and looked away, gripping both of his backpack straps in tight fists. Fulbert waited, his thumbs through the belt loops of his pants. Alan had never been a talkative kid; he was practically mute back when they had first found him in that backwoods excuse for a village, to the point where he wouldn’t so much as make a peep in Fulbert’s direction, only speaking to Augustine instead. But while it seemed that his silence from the village had returned at first, after a long moment, Alan finally spoke up. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to get him. The Professor has everything, so I don’t know what a good present would be. I figured . . . I thought maybe we could look around the stores until we found something good.”

“Okay,” Fulbert said, and that one little word was enough to inspire Alan to look up with something akin to hope in his eyes. “Do you have any stores in mind?”

“Um . . .” Alan looked down again, a bit crestfallen, and Fulbert couldn’t help but wonder if being this moody was a kid thing, or an Alan thing. He couldn’t remember being that moody when he was a child, but it wouldn’t surprise him if Augustine had been. “No, I . . . I don’t know a lot of stores. There’s the grocery store, but I think we have enough food at home. And the bookstore, but . . .”

Fulbert wasn’t sure what was stronger: The feeling of an oncoming headache behind his eyes, or the feeling of dread that clenched in his chest as he realized what it was he was going to have to do. But as Alan stood before him, staring down at his shoes with an expression grave enough to suggest he was trying to diffuse a bomb before the planet exploded, Fulbert knew that he had no choice.

“Okay,” he said again, and as Alan looked up at him, he did his best to restrain a heavy sigh before he said, “then let’s go to the mall.”

The Lumiose City mall, while somehow often overshadowed by the various other stores and boutiques that littered the city streets, was enormous and generally overcrowded. It spanned three floors, and had walls comprised mostly of glass. The windows gleamed as onlookers approached, and though they gave potential customers full warning of how crowded the shopping center was, somehow there was still no real way to prepare oneself for the cacophony of sound and human interaction that waited within. The primary entrance did try to ease new customers into it by opening into a tiny foyer rather than the main floor, but the foyer was small and did nothing to diminish the din of frantic shoppers and hassled retail employees. The moment the automatic glass doors slid back to allow entrance to the mall, the roar of consumerism blasted through the opening, and it was a rush of sound that only grew louder with each step one took deeper into the damned building.

Fulbert, for his part, could at least pretend he was ignoring it. He was a big enough man that most other shoppers tended to give him a wide berth whether they intended to or not, and he had long since developed what Augustine fondly referred to as his “perma-scowl”, which meant that he routinely came off as disinterested or annoyed even when he wasn’t. While the mall was far from his favorite place to visit, on the rare occasions he did have to go, it made it relatively easy for him to get in and get out with little fuss. But as he guided the kid beside him through the foyer and into the mall proper, it occurred to him that Alan had likely never been; and when they reached the end of the foyer and the mall opened up before them, Alan’s wide eyes and the way he took a step back confirmed that thought.

“There are plenty of stores here for you to pick something out from,” Fulbert said.

At first, it looked as if Alan hadn’t heard him. He was staring at the swathes of shoppers darting from store to store along the walls, or else milling about the kiosks positioned in the middle of the floor. After a moment, he said, “There are so many people in here.”

In honesty, Fulbert didn’t think it was likely that the mall had more people roaming its floors than the streets did outside. But no matter how many glass windows were embedded in the walls, the mall was still a single building, and given how Fulbert himself despised mall crowds, he could easily see why the crowd inside the mall caught Alan’s attention more than the people and pokémon milling about the streets outside.

“Yeah,” Fulbert said, and he stuck his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants again. “Terrible, isn’t it?”

Without missing a beat, Alan nodded. Despite himself, Fulbert snorted a laugh.

“Well, the quicker you find something for Augustine, the quicker we can get the hel---eck out of here,” he said, and he put a hand on Alan’s back to lightly push him forward. “So get a move on, let’s go.”

The mall, as terrible as it was, was at least good for one thing: It offered a selection. The Lumiose City mall had at least three bookstores, twenty or more clothing shops, two toy stores, a handful of electronics shops, an odd vitamin supplement shop here or there, and dozens of little kiosks scattered on all three levels selling everything from new diet pills to overpriced sunglasses. Alan looked every which way as they walked; although he stuck close to Fulbert’s side, his small fists gripping his backpack straps like lifelines, he looked up at every kiosk as they passed, and craned his neck to consider each store as they walked by. Fulbert tried to walk slowly, to give Alan enough time to look at each store to see if there was one he wanted to venture into, but none of them seemed to catch his interest. For the most part, Fulbert understood; most of the stores on the lower level (that they passed, anyway) were clothing stores, and it made sense to him that a six-year-old wouldn’t feel particularly inclined to wander into any of them, particularly since it wasn’t like Augustine was doing any work to instill a sense of fashion in the kid. But when they passed the toy store, Alan didn’t so much as blink twice at it, and that gave Fulbert pause.

“Not this one, either?” he asked, and he jerked his thumb back at it.

Alan stopped as well, and when he saw where Fulbert was pointing, he frowned. “That’s a toy store,” he said.

“I know.”

Alan’s frown deepened, his brow pinched in confusion. Fulbert had to admit, it was a little funny to see an expression like that on a child’s face.

“The Professor doesn’t play with toys,” Alan said.

“I know,” Fulbert repeated. “Doesn’t mean you can’t look around.”

“But I won’t find a present for the Professor in there.”

“I . . .” Fulbert began, yet then he heaved a sigh, and nudged Alan to get him walking again. “Never mind, forget it. Keep walking.”

Alan shot him one more confused frown before he did as he was told, once again turning his attention to the kiosks in the middle of the mall floor and the shops that lined the walls. Fulbert watched him in bemusement for a minute before he shook his head.

What kind of kid wasn’t interested in---or at least distracted by---a toy store? Not that Fulbert wanted to spend time standing around in a toy store, but that wasn’t the point. Alan’s single-minded focus on and determination for his goal was something else. Augustine sure knew how to find ‘em.

But while Alan wasn’t interested in the toy store, when they came across the Maldenbooks located on the first floor, he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide. Fulbert couldn’t blame him; while it still bore the Maldenbooks name, the shop itself was big enough to earn the branding of its parent company, Boundaries, and once the Eternity 22 above it went out of business or moved, he was sure Boundaries would snap that space up to expand the Maldenbooks to the second floor and give it the branding it deserved. All the same, he couldn’t help but smirk at the way Alan’s eyes shined as he stared at the Maldenbooks, his lips pressed together as he squeezed the straps of his backpack.

“Want to take a look inside?” Fulbert asked. When Alan turned to him with a conflicted expression, he added, “Augustine does like to read. You might find something for him in there.”

Alan turned back to the Maldenbooks with an expression that suggested he was staring at Candy Land instead. It only took a second longer for him to nod once, a determined expression on his face, before he walked into the store with a stride so purposeful it was as if he was walking into a League match instead. Fulbert’s smirk grew.

While the Maldenbooks didn’t span two floors as its parent company’s branded stores typically did, it was still large. Thick, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, with some shelves jutting out from the walls to box off different sections (such as a section for comics and graphic novels, another for sci-fi and fantasy, and so on). There were smaller shelves and display tables in the middle of the store floor as well; these shelves were lined up in neat rows, with the display tables between them, but although they looked neat and organized, that didn’t change the fact that they forced the cash wrap into one tiny corner of the store, near the entrance. That, when combined with the faded, polka dot print carpet that looked like it was straight out of the ‘70s, was enough to make the store feel more cramped than cozy despite its size.

Alan, however, didn’t seem to mind. Much like he had with the kiosks and stores in the main part of the mall, he examined each of the standalone shelves and display tables in the Maldenbooks (though he had to stand on his tiptoes to see on top of the tables, and even then, some of the book stacks were so tall Fulbert was sure Alan couldn’t see what books were on top). Despite the effort he was clearly making to give each shelf and table equal attention, however, the allure of books seemed too strong for Alan to keep still. He darted from display to display like an overexcited charmander examining apple baskets, and with all his agoraphobia from earlier seemingly forgotten, he zipped right down the middle of the store.

Fulbert followed Alan at a comfortable distance, letting the kid do his thing while keeping him in sight. And as he did, he casually perused the books himself. The books on the display tables were, by and large, the current popular, mainstream titles from the Lumiose Press Best Sellers’ list. The tables were organized by genre, with little placards set out on each one to tell a customer at a glance what they were in for if they wandered over, but while Fulbert was naturally drawn to the Mystery / Thriller table, he found nothing of note on it. It was unsurprising; commercial chains only purchased the books they were confident they could sell, and those books were typically only the ones that just barely scratched the surface of their genre. Books that went deeper were a risk; novels that weren’t easily understood, or that were perceived as “weird” could rot on store shelves, and nonfiction that brazenly presented difficult to consume truth was bound to collect dust. Commercial chains like Maldenbooks didn’t like that. Only independent booksellers were brave enough to take that gamble, and those were the only bookshops that were worth frequenting.

But he wasn’t in an indie bookstore now. He was in a Maldenbooks, and since he would be there for however long it took for Alan to find something for Augustine, he knew he should make the most of it. He picked the most promising looking book off the table (though it looked about as promising as a banana that was only two weeks old instead of three), and after taking a glance at the summary on the back cover, flipped through the pages. The novel, which was supposedly an innovative work of fiction detailing the emotional woes of a middle-aged man who was trying to write novels after his wife had just left him, at least had that nice, new book smell to make up for its lack of originality. But when Fulbert flipped to the middle and selected a random passage to read, he unfortunately saw that---

“Hey, buddy---please don’t climb on that!”

Fulbert looked up, his attention ripped from the petty, self-indulgent tripe he had been reading before he had time to register the fact that he was now paying attention to a young, female employee instead of the book in his hands. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have; it was more than obvious that the employee wasn’t speaking to him as she headed to a section in the very back, right-hand corner of the store. He wasn’t climbing on anything, after all, and thus nothing the employee said or did had anything to do with him. He had no need to pay attention.

But the moment his attention was pulled away from the motel fiction in his hands, he cast a glance around him, and noticed that he was suddenly very alone in the bookstore. There wasn’t a single strand of messy black hair in sight---no kid standing on his tiptoes to see over the tabletops, or craning his neck back to see the books up on the higher shelves. Fulbert didn’t have a single cell of parental intuition in his body, but as he saw the female employee’s ponytail disappear around one of the bookshelf walls so that she could enter the section where someone was climbing shelves, he had a very strong feeling that he would find his missing charge around that corner.

Fulbert sighed, dropped the book back on the table, and followed after the employee.

“You have to get down,” the employee said, as Fulbert rounded the bookshelf blocking off the section and came up behind her. She was facing the bookshelves that lined the wall, oblivious to his presence, and when Fulbert saw who she was speaking to---when he saw Alan clinging to the wooden shelves, having managed to get halfway up them like a damn chimchar in the five minutes Fulbert had looked away from him---he found himself wholly unsurprised. Alan at least had the courtesy to turn his head a little to show that he was listening to her, but while he didn’t climb up any higher, he also made no move to get down. “We can’t have you climbing shelves in here, it’s dangerous---”

“It’s okay,” Fulbert said, and though she jumped a little at the sound of his voice, when the employee turned to him, her expression cleared with relief. “I’ve got him.”

Without wasting another beat, Fulbert walked past the employee and grabbed Alan around his waist, yanking him off the bookshelves to hold him under one arm. Alan gasped a little when pulled down, yet although he wriggled to try and get free, he quickly realized it was fruitless. Fulbert turned to look back at the employee, who now looked like she was biting back a smile.

“Sorry about that,” he said gruffly. “Won’t happen again.”

“It’s---It’s all right,” the employee said. “It’s just dangerous, you know---these shelves could fall---”

“Yeah, I know,” Fulbert said, doing his best to not sound impatient. It wasn’t her fault; she was just doing her job. “Won’t happen again.”

“Right. Well, please let me know if you need anything . . .” Her eyes flicked up to the top of the bookshelves Alan had been climbing, and her cheeks tinted pink as she quickly looked away. “From any . . . any other part of the store.”

Fulbert furrowed his brow. “Okay? Will do, thanks.”

The employee nodded, and then quickly turned and darted off, her head bowed. Fulbert watched her go, flummoxed. What was all that about? He could get it if she was shy, or if she felt put-off by him (wouldn’t be the first time), but she had seemed fine at the start. And what was with the blushing? Had she spontaneously developed some kind of crush? She was too young for his tastes, teenager that she was, though he supposed she might have been older than she looked---

“Um, Fulbert?” Alan said, and though his voice was tiny, it was enough to break through Fulbert’s thoughts on the baffling behavior of the store employee. He looked down at Alan---who was still tucked under his arm---and saw that the kid was frowning up at him. “You can put me down now.”

“What? Oh. Right.” Fulbert set Alan on his feet, and as Alan straightened out his lab coat (and his damned shoes flashed red---for godsake, Augustine---), asked, “What were you climbing these shelves for, anyway? Does Augustine let you climb over everything like a monkey pokémon?”

A tiny wince crossed Alan’s face before he looked away, staring at a patch of floor to his right. “No,” he said after a moment. “But the Professor’s not here, and I wanted to get a book for him, so---”

“I’m here,” Fulbert interrupted. “And I’m here to help you, so if you want help getting a book, you ask me, got it?” Alan chewed the inside of his cheek, but nodded. “Good. Now what book did you want?”

“I don’t know,” Alan mumbled, and Fulbert resisted the urge to put his face in his palm. “I wanted to see if I could find one, but I can’t see what books are up there since the shelves are too high. That’s why I was climbing.”

“You can’t find something on a lower shelf?” Fulbert asked. Alan didn’t answer, and after a moment Fulbert heaved a sigh. “All right, fine. I can give you a lift. But I’m not Augustine---I don’t give shoulder rides---so don’t get too excited.”

“I won’t,” Alan muttered. Fulbert wasn’t sure if he was being sincere or biting, and given that Alan was six, that was a little more bothersome than it was easy to admit.

Nonetheless, standing around wondering about whether or not Alan was mature enough to be sassy wouldn’t get them anywhere, so Fulbert looped an arm around Alan’s waist and lifted him---vertically, this time---into the air. As he picked Alan up, he finally turned his eyes to the top shelf, and when he did, he finally saw what had reduced the store employee to embarrassed blushing and stammering.

The section they were standing in was one that was labeled---with big, three dimensional letters, no less---Adult / Erotica.

“Kid,” Fulbert said slowly, “what . . . why are you looking for a book over here?”

“Because these are books for adults,” Alan said, and when Fulbert looked over at him, continued, “and the Professor’s an adult. If I wanted a book for me, I’d go to the children’s section, but since I’m looking for a book for the Professor, I should come over here to the adult section. Right?”

For a moment, Fulbert didn’t know what to say. The kid’s logic wasn’t exactly wrong, but . . .

“These . . . these are not the kinds of books you want to look for,” he said finally, as he set Alan down again. With both of Alan’s feet planted firmly back on the ground, Fulbert pointed up at the large sign above the bookshelves. “You see that second word up there? The one after ‘adult’?”

Alan craned his head back to see, and after a moment, nodded and said, “E-ro-ti-ca.”

“Right,” Fulbert said, trying to ignore how uncomfortable it felt to hear such a small kid say that word. “When you see that word, you turn and walk in the other direction. You don’t look at books that are marked with that, understand?”

Alan nodded again, slower this time, a thoughtful look on his face. But before Fulbert could breathe a sigh of relief, he asked, “But what does it mean?”

“What?”

“What does erotica mean? Why is it bad?”

Fulbert scrubbed a hand down his face. The situation didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel real that he was standing in the middle of a bookstore’s adult section while a six-year-old wearing a “combee yourself!” t-shirt asked him to explain what erotica was. It didn’t feel real, and yet, there he was, the world’s biggest joker of the day.

God damn Augustine sure knew how to find ‘em.

“It’s . . . for grown-ups,” he said finally. “It’s something for grown-ups. For adults. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Oh.” Alan blinked. “So it’s like relations and lisit trysts?”

Of course the kid would remember a one-off joke from a year ago. As funny as it had been to watch Augustine flounder with that question back then, Fulbert could kick his past self now. He huffed another sigh as he waved one hand through the air.

“Kind of. Sort of. Sometimes. Ask Augustine. No,” he said, and he jabbed one finger in Alan’s direction before he had a chance to so much as nod. “Don’t. Don’t say a word of this to him. The last thing I need is him asking me why you’re asking him to explain what erotica is.”

“Okay,” Alan said, a dissatisfied frown on his face.

Well, that was fine. He could be dissatisfied all he wanted. So long as Fulbert didn’t have to field any questions from Augustine about why Alan was asking about erotica, whatever the kid felt was fine by him.

So he said, “Good. Go somewhere else and pick something out, then,” before he gave Alan’s shoulder another little nudge to encourage him to go back out to the middle of the store. Alan took the hint; once again gripping both backpack straps in tight little fists, he wandered back out to the middle of the Maldenbooks, standing up on his tiptoes as needed to look at the display tables and middle shelves, just in case he had missed anything the first time.

Like before, Fulbert followed him at a distance, mindful this time of the fact that he needed to pay Alan a bit more attention to make sure he didn’t wander off again. He watched as Alan abandoned the display tables to look at one of the smaller, center bookshelves instead, and to make sure they avoided another incident like before (because really, if someone didn’t call child services because of Alan’s outfit, seeing him scaling the shelves in the erotica section of the bookstore was bound to do the trick), he looked up at the placard on top of the shelves to make sure the section was appropriate. When he saw what genre of books the shelves contained, he snorted.

Nature / Wildlife Nonfiction. Sure.

As Alan examined one side of the small shelves, Fulbert went around to examine the other. There were plenty of scientifically sound nonfiction works on the subject. Academic journals routinely published works composed by dedicated researchers in the field, and regional professors from around the world came out with new volumes of their research every other year. But the idea that credible, academic nonfiction would be sold in a commercial chain such as Maldenbooks was good for a laugh and nothing else. The types of people who published books that chains such as Maldenbooks picked up were the same types of people who told their entire life story in a blog post that ended in a recipe for cookies that used prepackaged, frozen dough. It was good for those who didn’t know any better, but for anyone who already had knowledge in the field, the ridiculousness was clownish.

Case in point---

Fulbert plucked a book off one of the top shelves. According to the little information card taped to the shelf just beneath it, the book was a thrilling best seller despite being a new release, and had already been nominated for the Bulitzer Prize. (Never mind that it wasn’t as if the Bulitzer board selected the nominees themselves, but instead had the nominees handed to them by those willing to pay the nomination fee . . .) Written by a self-proclaimed pokémon expert, the book apparently detailed the harrowing journey one undertook when living among cubchoo and beartic in the Unovan arctic, and how the author came to be one with the bears, describing them as his newest---and truest---family.

Fulbert rolled his eyes.

It was a farce, and one Fulbert could see from ten miles back. The book was nothing more than ego-stroking drivel disguised as actual science. As true as that was, however, there was one thing about the book that Fulbert couldn’t easily ignore---one thing that had caught his attention in the first place, and inspired him to pull the book off the shelf.

On the front cover, emblazoned proudly in gold, were the words, “With contributions from Cedric Juniper.”

It wasn’t unusual for actual scientists, researchers, and professors to collaborate. Fulbert and Augustine were proof enough of that. As much as many (if not most, if not all) scientists and researchers wanted to make names for themselves, science was (and always had been) a collaborative field. It was impossible for anyone to learn everything by themselves. The only way that anyone grew as a researcher was to study the discoveries made by others, so as to broaden their own understanding of the world and see new angles to the universe that they previously weren’t aware existed. Collaboration was one such way scientists and researchers learned, particularly since having several sets of eyes on the same project allowed for differing viewpoints and new discoveries. So the idea that Cedric Juniper had contributed information to another person’s work was not surprising in and of itself. What was surprising---baffling, really---was the fact that Cedric had decided to contribute to this person’s work. The author of the book Fulbert held in his hands was as much a scientist as a university’s public safety officer was an actual police officer. He had no credibility whatsoever. Why Cedric would risk tarnishing his own reputation by having his name published alongside that of a charlatan was a mystery enough to not only catch, but hold Fulbert’s attention. He flipped through the book to see if he could easily spot what Cedric had contributed, and when he couldn’t, he pulled out his PokéGear to snap pictures of the title, author’s name, and ISBN. He wasn’t going to buy it---he wasn’t in the business of paying for something scraped from the bottom of a trash can---but with the right info, he was sure he could find a free .pdf of it online. Satisfied, he slipped his PokéGear back in his pocket, and returned the book to the shelf.

It was only when he had slid the book back into place that he realized he had once again gotten distracted, and remembered why he was standing in the middle of a Maldenbooks in the first place.

The kid. Goddamn it.

“Pipsqueak?” he called. He looped around the shelf just in case Alan, much like Fulbert himself, was too absorbed in a book to pay attention. His heart sank when he arrived at the other side and saw that the kid was nowhere in sight. Hissing another (more severe) oath beneath his breath, Fulbert scanned the rest of the shelves and display tables in the back of the store where they were (or at least, Fulbert was). The kid wasn’t at any of the display tables, nor was he roaming any of the other smaller, standalone shelves nearby. He thankfully hadn’t wandered back into the adult section, but when Fulbert craned his neck to see if he had wandered into the children’s section instead (because really, it wouldn’t be a crime for the kid to look for something for himself), he didn’t see a hint of a head of messy black hair back there, either. Fulbert drummed his fingers against his legs, and licked his lips as he started back toward the front of the store. The Maldenbooks was decently sized, sure. It was big enough. But it was also, thanks to the layout, easy to see all of the sections from the middle of the floor, no doubt to make it easier to spot potential shoplifters. Fulbert looked into each section as he passed by, and took a deep breath through his teeth. The kid was still in the store. The kid was definitely still in the store. He was just . . . a kid. He was small. Fulbert had three feet and a handful of inches on him, for Zygarde’s sake. That made him hard to spot, made it easy for him to run off and hide, even though Fulbert knew that he couldn’t have been distracted for more than ten minutes, tops. And that, however it might have felt as his heart drummed a quicker beat and a nasty little voice in the back of his mind asked him how he was going to explain to Augustine that he lost Alan in a Maldenbooks, was not enough time for anything truly terrible to happen.

But however confident Fulbert felt about the fact that Alan was perfectly fine and nothing bad had happened, there was still no trace of the kid by the time he reached the front of the store. He scrubbed his hand across his face, and took a deep breath. Okay. There was a way to fix this. He had never had to do it before, given that he was not a parent (or a babysitter, generally, and Yveltal would roast the earth before he ever agreed to this again), but he knew that stores had paging systems for a reason. All he had to do was go to the cash wrap and have them page the kid. They could even potentially temporarily shut the store down so Alan couldn’t leave, just in case he was so inclined. It was an easy fix. Easy. There was no way Fulbert was going to permanently lose the kid. That was not happening. Not today.

It was as he turned to head toward the cash wrap, though, that something caught the corner of his eye. He was going to ignore it---there were more important things to worry about---but much like he had tuned in to what the store employee was saying earlier before he realized what he was doing, he turned away from the cash wrap and back to the store entrance before he could help himself now. When he saw why, his heart palpitated in his chest.

What he had seen---what he noticed before his brain had time to catch up---was Alan’s obnoxious komala plush backpack. It was, thankfully, still strapped to the kid’s back, the straps neat and snug over his little lab coat. Alan was all right. He was fine. He was still there, and he was not lost. There was no need to explain anything to Augustine.

But while Alan was fine, the situation was not, and any relief Fulbert felt at the fact that he had found Alan safe and sound was quickly smothered by a flood of indignant rage. For while Alan was in one piece near the entrance, he wasn’t alone; a tall, reedy man with oily skin and an ugly mustache was standing by him, and as Fulbert watched, the man had the unmitigated gall to put his hand on the back of Alan’s head and gently guide him toward the entrance.

Fulbert curled his fingers into fists.

“HEY!”

It was possible that the storefront windows shook. Someone dropped something elsewhere in the store. Alan jumped badly enough that it set off the lights on his shoes, and everyone in a fifteen-mile radius---including the stranger, who wisely took his greasy hand off Alan’s head---turned in Fulbert’s direction as he stomped toward the entrance.

The man plastered a look on his face that Fulbert was sure was supposed to convey both innocence and confusion. The drop of sweat above his beady little eyes meant it did neither.

“Is there something we can help you with?” the man asked.

If Fulbert had been furious before---and oh, he was the second he realized what was happening---that was nothing compared to how badly he wanted to crack the man’s teeth beneath his knuckles when he heard Alan’s implicit inclusion in that ‘we’. His fists were clenched so tight they hurt.

“Yeah, I’ll say,” he growled, in lieu of physical violence. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man forced a tight smile and awkward laugh, even as a muscle in his cheek jumped. He gestured toward Alan with one hand, and perhaps he noticed the way Fulbert’s arm twitched to smack his arm away, for he didn’t make contact this time. Good.

“I’m just taking my son, here, home,” the man said.

When Fulbert had shouted and made his way over, Alan---after recovering from the initial shock of Fulbert’s booming voice---had wrapped his arms around his stomach and turned his eyes to the floor, going still. But when the man claimed to be his father, his head snapped up, his eyes wide even as his eyebrows knitted over them in open confusion, his mouth open a little.

Fulbert was not nearly so impressed.

“This kid’s an orphan. He’s no one’s son,” Fulbert snapped. Alan looked back down at his feet. “Got another lie you’d like to try, genius?”

“I’m not . . .” the man said, but even he realized that his fumbled excuses were failing him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and rocked back on his heels as he not-so-discreetly took notice of all the people staring at them. He licked his lips as his eyes swept over the onlookers before he looked back at Fulbert, and raised his chin a little in defiance. “Who are you, then? What business is it of yours?”

“I’m . . . his babysitter,” Fulbert said, because it was as good a description of what he was to the kid as any. It wasn’t like he could think of one better. “So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your dirty hands off him and walk away right now.”

The man considered him for a minute before he drew his shoulders back. Considering how the man was at least a head shorter than him, the motion was so absurd Fulbert almost laughed.

“And if I don’t?” the man asked.

Fulbert shrugged. “If you don’t,” he said, as he pulled Cumulonimbus’ pokéball from his pocket, “then my altaria and I would be more than happy to break you and smear your pieces across this tacky carpet.” He maximized Cumulonimbus’ pokéball and held it up as the color drained from the man’s face. “I’ll even let you pick which one of us does it. Consider it a token of my generosity.”

“Excuse me! Sir, um . . .”

Fulbert and the man both turned as a store employee---the manager, by the look of her---strode toward them at a brisk pace, the employee from earlier trailing behind her. Despite how hastily both women made their way over, neither one seemed eager to interfere. Fulbert raised his eyebrows as the manager drew herself up to her full height anyway.

“Stop---er, please don’t . . . please no violence in our store,” she said.

“I won’t get violent unless this scum-sucking trash basket makes me,” Fulbert said flatly.

The female employee from the back of the store let out a low whistle. The man, on the other hand, huffed an incredulous laugh.

“I’m not making anyone do anything,” he said, and he turned his eyes to the manager. “Ma’am, there’s been a misunderstanding here. I was just trying to take my child home---”

“He’s making me,” Fulbert said loudly, cutting easily across the man’s voice. The man closed his mouth with a snap as Fulbert turned to him and snarled, “Call him your child one more goddamn time and it will take a very dedicated surgeon to remove your teeth from the back of your throat.”

“Okay!” the manager said, and she clapped her hands together once just in case her voice wasn’t loud enough. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I’m sure that we can get this all settled---”

“Um, Carol?” the employee from before said, and the manager---Carol, it seemed her name was---turned back to her. “I was working in the back earlier, and I saw this gentleman,” she motioned to Fulbert, “taking care of that little boy. I don’t think this other . . . man is being honest. At all.”

All eyes turned back to the stranger, whose face went pale under a thin sheen of sweat.

“My employees tend to be pretty trustworthy,” Carol said slowly. “Do you have something to say for yourself, sir?”

“Um . . . I---that is---uh . . .” The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and took a step backward, toward the exit. “I . . . I’m just going to, uh . . .”

“Good idea,” Fulbert said. “Run.”

The man didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and scampered through the exit to the bookshop with the speed of a scalded cat, and Fulbert turned back to Carol as he stored Cumulonimbus’ pokéball back in his pocket.

“Might want to put a hit out with mall security,” he said. “They’ll want to know to pick him up before he gets his greasy hands on any other kids.”

Carol nodded. “Right you are. Betsy?”

The employee from before---Betsy---stood up straighter. “Ma’am?”

Carol nodded toward Fulbert. “Make sure this gentleman finds whatever it is he needs,” she said. The so we can get him the hell out of our store that followed the end of her sentence rang loud and clear to Fulbert’s ears, even though Carol hadn’t said it.

Betsy nodded as Carol turned and headed back toward the cash wrap, no doubt so she could grab one of the store phones and make a call to mall security. Betsy turned back to Fulbert, no doubt to ask him if he needed help finding anything, but before she could get one word out, he raised one hand and said, “We’re good, thanks.”

Betsy blinked, clearly taken aback. “O-Oh. Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Fulbert said. “So you can run along and help some customers who actually need it.”

“Okay. Well, let us know if you do need help finding anything,” Betsy said. Fulbert nodded, and---with somehow more awkwardness than she had displayed when leaving Fulbert and Alan alone in the adult section---she turned and meandered back toward the center of the store, only glancing over her shoulder once to make sure that Fulbert hadn’t changed his mind.

By this point, the onlookers who had decided to stop and watch the scene at the front of the store unfold had dispersed. Carol was most likely still on the phone with mall security, and Betsy---well assured that Fulbert wasn’t going to suddenly ask her for help locating a book---was out of earshot. With Fulbert and Alan now alone at the entrance to the Maldenbooks, Fulbert rounded on the boy in question, who was still staring hard at the polka dotted carpet beneath his feet.

“Now that that’s all taken care of,” Fulbert said, “mind telling me what the hell that was all about? Just what on Zygarde’s green earth were you thinking going off with that scumbag like that? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? Do you? Because I do---I have plenty---and none of them are good.”

Alan didn’t answer, nor did he look up. But the way he swallowed and clenched his jaw told Fulbert that he had no problem hearing the words that were being spoken to him, and that did little to deter Fulbert.

“Hey. Answer me,” he said, and he snapped his fingers three times to get Alan’s attention. “What were you thinking?”

Still Alan didn’t answer, or even so much as glance in Fulbert’s direction. He did, however, flinch when Fulbert snapped his fingers, and wrap his arms tighter around himself, as if full-body recoiling from Fulbert’s interrogation.

It had been about a year since that incident in Isolé Village, and truth be told, they hadn’t spent very long in the village at all. Augustine’s decision to take Alan back with them had been so quick that he and Fulbert had gotten in a fight over it, but it had taken less than five minutes to see that Augustine had a point about the environment not being good for the kid. The Maldenbooks they were standing in now was nothing at all like that village, but as Fulbert stared down at Alan, he was forcibly reminded of that day. Alan had made a lot of progress since then, but it seemed that he still fell back on old defense mechanisms when exposed to pressure. The body language he had now said it all. If Fulbert wanted to get anything, much less an explanation for his behavior, out of him, then he needed to be gentle. The problem was that Fulbert was about as gentle as sandpaper was on open wounds.

He sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face and over his beard.

“All right,” he said gruffly. “New plan. Do you like ice cream?”

Alan blinked, and though he still didn’t lift his head, his eyes widened at the patch of carpet he was staring at. That wasn’t a “yes,” but it wasn’t a “no” either, and at this point, Fulbert was going to take what he could get.

“Then let’s go get you some ice cream,” Fulbert said.

The food court was in the middle of the second floor. While there were vending machines that sold little cups of Scoopin’ Spots “ice cream” scattered throughout the mall, if Fulbert was going to have any chance at all of smoothing things with Alan over enough to get the kid to talk to him again, he figured he was going to have to shell out for real ice cream. He led the way out of the Maldenbooks, one hand on the back of Alan’s head to ensure they didn’t get separated, and took him to the second floor via one of the escalators nearby. (Whatever silent panic attack Alan was having didn’t stop him from looking amazed at the escalator beneath his feet. It appeared to be his first time ever using one, and Fulbert couldn’t help but smirk a little at how his eyes roved over every inch of it as they rode it to the top.)

For the most part, the second floor was not any more crowded than the first, but this changed once they reached the food court. Aside from the odd aroma emanating from the food court due to all the different types of food being sold there, the food court was a unique ball of stress inside the giant stress spawn point that was the mall itself due to how shoppers used it as a meeting space on top of using it for its intended function. Alan’s pace slowed as they neared, no doubt due to the cluster of people congregated in the food court, but Fulbert---not willing to let Alan fall behind or out of sight after what had just happened---grabbed Alan’s hand to tug him along.

“Come on,” he said. “This way.”

Still, Alan didn’t say a word. He didn’t protest Fulbert leading him by the hand, and when they reached the front of the line at the Raskin Bobbins at the back of the food court, he didn’t so much as glance at the menu, much less say what he wanted. Chocolate was probably a safe bet, flavor-wise, and it was likely that cookies ‘n’ cream or bubblegum would also be kid-friendly picks. But since Alan wasn’t offering an opinion, and since Fulbert would have to finish it himself if Alan didn’t (since he wasn’t letting food go to waste---not today, not ever), he purchased a scoop of coffee flavor in a styrofoam bowl (because even if Alan did eat it all, he might be slow about it, and Fulbert was not about to have it melt all over Alan’s hands and make them sticky). That accomplished, he led Alan over to one of the least crowded corners of the food court (a feat), and sat him down at the table with his ice cream before taking a seat across from him.

“There you go,” he said. “Take your time and eat up.”

Cautiously, as though he thought Fulbert was going to change his mind and take it back, Alan picked up the little pink spoon that came with the ice cream bowl, scooped a dollop of ice cream on it, and took a bite. The second he did, his eyes widened, and he looked at the ice cream like he had the escalator: like he had never seen it before.

“Good?” Fulbert asked, and once more, he couldn’t help but smirk a little. Alan glanced at him, but looked back down at the ice cream just as quickly before he nodded. Well, it was a start. “Glad you like it. That’s coffee-flavored. You’re a researcher, or at least, you might be someday; might as well get used to how that tastes now.”

Alan slowly pulled the spoon from his mouth, but he didn’t move to take another bite. After a moment---and so quietly Fulbert almost didn’t hear him---he said, “The Professor says I’m not allowed to drink coffee. He said I’m too little to drink it yet.”

“This isn’t actual coffee. It’s just coffee-flavored,” Fulbert said. “Trust me, if it was actual coffee, I wouldn’t let you have it, either. No way I want to deal with a kid on a caffeine high.” Not that a kid on a sugar high was much better, but so far Alan seemed calm. Fulbert had reason to hope that a little bit of ice cream wouldn’t make him crazy hyperactive.

Whatever the case, the assurance that he wasn’t breaking one of Augustine’s rules let Alan set in on the ice cream again, and as he slowly ate through it, Fulbert saw that he was right not to give the kid a cone. It no doubt would have melted all over him, and there wouldn’t have been enough moist towelettes in the world to deal with that mess. They sat in silence while Alan ate for a time, but when he was about halfway through (and looked mildly happier than he had when they first sat down), Fulbert asked, “So, you ready to tell me what you were thinking back there?” Alan stilled, and Fulbert added, “I’m not mad. I just want to know what happened.”

Alan didn’t answer. He dug his spoon into what remained of his ice cream, slowly twisting it around. But just when Fulbert was about to give up and call it a day, Alan said quietly, “He said he had something cool to show me. I thought it might be a good present for the Professor. So I went.”

Fulbert could have smacked his palm against his face again. In the interest of not making Alan think he was mad again, he restrained the impulse.

“Kid,” he said instead, “I get that finding a present for Augustine is really important to you. I do. I get that. Your heart is in the right place. But listen to me: You can’t just go off with strangers because you want to do something nice for Augustine. You can’t do that. That’s---it’s dangerous, you understand? Someone out there could really hurt you. I was there to prevent it this time, but I won’t always be there. Neither will Augustine, for that matter. You’ve got to watch yourself, and you’ve got to make smart, conscientious decisions even if that means you might be passing up a chance to do something nice for Augustine. Understand?” Alan nodded, but something about the way he was still looking down at his ice cream instead of up at Fulbert made that nod not good enough. “Say it. Tell me you understand. Promise me you won’t go off with a stranger no matter how many nice things you think you might be able to do for Augustine if you do.”

“I promise,” Alan mumbled, and Fulbert relaxed.

“Good,” he said. “Now finish your ice cream, and then let’s go get that present so we can get out of here.”

Alan took his time polishing off the rest of his ice cream, almost as if he was pondering the meaning of life within its depths. When he finally finished, Fulbert led him over to the trash can to dispose of it, and then to the bathroom so that he could wash his hands (and, god willing, get rid of any sticky residue that had happened to get on them thanks to his snack). All that accomplished, they still had to find a suitable gift. Bookstores were a bust, and Fulbert knew that now; even if Alan might find a nice book for Augustine within them, bookstores were too distracting for Fulbert regardless of how commercial they were. He had narrowly dodged one bullet of having to tell Augustine that Alan had gotten kidnapped; he was not about to take a chance with round two.

With that being the case, Fulbert looked down at Alan as they exited the food court and asked, “So, have any other gift ideas in that head of yours?”

With the crowds thinned a little the farther away they got from the food court, Alan tugged his hand free of Fulbert’s so that he could grip his backpack straps again. As he did, he shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said, and Fulbert bit back his sigh. “I know he likes books, but he already has a lot of books, so I don’t know what new one to get him. He likes pokémon, but I’m not sure if I could catch a new one, either . . .”

“He’s got enough pokémon, besides,” Fulbert said. Alan didn’t reply. Fulbert scruffed a hand down his beard. “All right, how about you look at this gift thing from a new angle, then?”

Alan looked up at him, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re thinking about what Augustine likes, and that’s coming up a bust. So why don’t you think about something he needs? What’s a question he has every day, or something he’s mentioned needing but not having? What’s something he has to go out of his way to do, and is there a way to make that easier on him? Something like that.”

Alan looked at the floor again, frowning as he walked. Fulbert could practically see the gears turning in his head; it was amazing how such a little kid could look so serious. After a few minutes, Alan said, “He asks what time it is a lot. Sometimes he goes all the way back inside to check.”

“Unsurprising,” Fulbert said, if only because time management had never been Augustine’s strong suit. “But okay. It sounds to me like he needs a watch, then, so let’s see if we can go get him one. Follow me.”

Watches didn’t have their own separate store within the mall, but there was a large kiosk on the third floor that sold them. This kiosk, like the ones that sold jewelry, was comprised of four glass counters arranged in a rectangle, with one lone employee sitting on a stool in the middle. Said employee looked as though the song “Mad World” was playing on a constant loop on his head as Fulbert and Alan walked up, but when he saw them approach, the employee perked up instantly.

“Hello!” the employee said brightly, going so far as to hop off his stool and bound over to the counter nearest them like an attention-starved puppy. Fulbert wondered how many hours he had been sitting there in silence. “Can I help you?”

“Not yet,” Fulbert said, and the employee deflated a little. Fulbert ignored him as he tapped the glass. “There you go, pipsqueak. Pick out something you like.”

Alan pushed himself up on his tiptoes, craning his head back as he tried to see through the glass. It only took a second for him to give up, and look to Fulbert with a frown.

“I can’t see the watches very well,” he said. “I’m not tall enough.”

“Of course you’re not,” Fulbert said, and without wasting another beat he looped an arm around Alan’s waist, and lifted him vertically, just as he had in the bookstore.

Now held well above the counters, Alan studied the watches with all the intensity of a senior looking over his final thesis paper. Fulbert slowly walked along the counter, giving Alan time to scrutinize each and every one, and when they reached the end of the first counter, Alan pointed at a watch near the end of the row.

“There,” he said. “That one.”

“This one?” the employee said, and he pointed to the same watch Alan had indicated. When Alan nodded, the employee laughed. “I think that one’s a bit too big for you, buddy---”

“It’s not for him,” Fulbert said, and he didn’t bother to keep the annoyance from his voice as he set Alan down. It had been a long day. “It’s a gift. Just get it out of the cabinet, please.”

“O-Oh. Of course. Right away!” The employee plucked a large keyring from his belt so he could unlock the cabinet, and had the watch out in a flash. Fulbert pulled it closer to get a better look, and now that he was examining it, he had to admit the kid had good sense; between the rainbow face and the tree insignia, Fulbert was sure Augustine would love it.

Even so, it wasn’t his opinion of whether it was a good gift or not that mattered.

“You sure this is the one, kid?” Fulbert asked, and he held the watch up for Alan to see. Alan paused in the process of bringing his komala plush backpack around to the front to look at the watch, and then nodded. Satisfied, Fulbert set the watch back on the counter and turned to the employee. “All right, ring this up.”

“Wait!” Alan said.

Fulbert looked back down to see that Alan had produced a little coin purse shaped like a meowth from the depths of his backpack, and as he held it up for Fulbert to take, Fulbert asked, “Do you own anything that isn’t disgustingly cute?”

“Um,” Alan said, frowning, “I don’t know, but . . . I want to pay for it. I have money.” He held up his coin purse again, and Fulbert sighed as he took it and brought it up to the counter. In one fluid motion he unzipped it and (with some degree of care so that coins wouldn’t bounce in every direction) he emptied the contents onto the counter.

To the kid’s credit, he had an impressive amount of coins. Unfortunately, coins themselves didn’t add up to very much. The grand total of Alan’s savings added up to ₽110, which was barely anything to the watch’s ₽24,000 price tag. But this, as Fulbert had known when Alan had called him earlier in the week, was important to the kid. And when he glanced at the kid from the corner of his eye, he saw that Alan looked excited---that he was smiling a little as he waited.

Fulbert sighed. He couldn’t come all this way just to tell the kid no.

“Hey, pipsqueak,” he said, and when he saw that he had Alan’s attention, he nodded toward the counter on the other side. “I think I saw a klefki in the glass case on the other side there, by the other watches.”

“What?” Alan said, his eyes widening. “Really?” He stood on his tiptoes, trying to see to the other side, even as the employee frowned.

“Really,” Fulbert said. “Why don’t you go check it out? If it’s wild, we might be able to bring that back to Augustine, too.”

“Okay!” Alan’s eyes were alight as he darted around the counter, eager to find the klefki Fulbert had spotted.

The employee was still frowning. “Hey, I don’t think there’s a---”

“Zip it,” Fulbert said, and---mindful once again of the fact that the employee was just doing his job---added, “Please,” as he pulled his own wallet from his back pocket.

The employee looked a bit mollified, but as he scooped Alan’s freshly counted coins into his hand to deposit them in the cash register, he said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any wild---”

“I’m aware of what you do and don’t have, thanks,” Fulbert said, as he thrusted his credit card at the employee. “Put the remainder on this, and make it quick.”

Finally, understanding lit in the employee’s eyes. Quietly, and with the good sense to hide his actions from the kid who was still searching determinedly for a klefki on the other side of the counter, the employee swiped Fulbert’s credit card through the card reader before he handed it back over. Fulbert had his credit card back in his wallet, and his wallet replaced, as the employee printed out his receipt and Alan looped back around the counter.

“I didn’t find the klefki,” Alan said, his shoulders slumped.

“Really? Too bad. Maybe I was just seeing things,” Fulbert said smoothly. He zipped up Alan’s coin purse and handed it back, and once Alan had deposited it back into his komala plush backpack, handed the watch over as well. “Here you go. Keep it safe.”

Whatever disappointment he felt at not locating the klefki was gone the second Fulbert handed the watch to him. Alan’s face lit up, a pleased smile splitting his cheeks as he whispered, “This is perfect.” He placed the watch into his backpack as well (with far more care than he had shown his coin purse, Fulbert noted) before he zipped his bag shut and placed both straps on his shoulders again.

“All set?” Fulbert asked, and Alan---still smiling---nodded as he gripped his backpack straps in both hands again. “Good. Then let’s get the hell out of this godforsaken place.”

The mall excursion had taken much longer than Fulbert had intended it to. However exhausted he was by the end of it aside (and gods, was he exhausted; he felt like he could smoke three cigarettes and even that wouldn’t be good enough), they weren’t halfway back to his apartment before his PokéGear started ringing with a call from Augustine. Augustine’s seminar had ended early, Augustine said, and not only was he already home, but he wanted to know if Fulbert wanted him to come pick Alan up, or if he would be fine bringing Alan back himself.

“Who says I’m done having him input data yet?” Fulbert had asked.

“I say,” Augustine had said, and his tone was suddenly sharp. “It’s been a couple of hours. He’s done more than enough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fulbert had said, and before Augustine could grow irate, had added, “I’ll have him home in about ten minutes. Just sit tight.”

He had snapped his PokéGear shut before Augustine had a chance to reply.

Either way, Fulbert made good on his word. He led Alan back to the front steps of Augustine’s lab (home, whatever), and once they arrived, said, “Here you are, pipsqueak. Home sweet home. If Augustine asks, all you did was enter data about the distribution of oddly-colored pancham today. Everything we actually did is top secret, got it?”

Alan nodded, and his expression was deadly serious as he mimed zipping his lips closed, and then locking them at the end with an invisible key he then tossed over his shoulder. It was a stupidly cute, childish action, but Fulbert still had to resist the impulse to laugh.

“All right, good,” he said instead. “Now go on, get in there.”

Alan started, as if he was going to turn to head up the stairs, yet then hesitated. Fulbert watched, curious, as Alan tentatively lifted both arms toward him. He seemed to think better of the action a second later, though, for he held out one hand instead, while his other arm fell back by his side.

“Thank you for taking me out today, Fulbert,” Alan said. “And for the ice cream, too.”

Fulbert stared at him for a second, and then---unable to resist a little smile this time---reached out and took Alan’s hand in as gentle a grip as he could manage, and shook it once.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

Alan returned his smile, and once his hand was free, turned and ran up to the front door. Fulbert watched just long enough to make sure Alan made it safely inside (for the last thing he needed as for Alan to get kidnapped or go missing from his own front porch) before he turned to head back home.

He was never doing it again, that was for damn sure, but as he pulled a cigarette and his lighter free from his pocket, he thought that taking the kid out shopping wasn’t so bad after all.

The morning of September 25th was just like any other morning, as far as Augustine was concerned. His morning routine was no different on that day than it was on any other. After showering and getting dressed, he made his way down to the kitchen so that he could start a pot of coffee to brew (and decide what to make for his and Alan’s breakfasts) before he headed out to check on the pokémon, and make sure that they all had something to eat. But while nothing special about the morning registered in his still half-asleep mind, when he entered the kitchen it was to find Alan already waiting for him by his seat at the table, his hands held behind his back. And before Augustine could so much as greet him, Alan greeted him instead by saying, “Happy birthday, Professor.”

“I---what?” Augustine blinked, and rubbed his left eye to try and clear the remaining sleep dust from it. “Come again?”

“Happy birthday,” Alan repeated, though his smile fell, his expression a bit uncertain, as he stepped forward. “It . . . is your birthday today, right? I checked the calendar, and it said today was September 25th . . .”

“Oh . . . oh! Right!” Augustine laughed, and the uncertainty in Alan’s expression cleared. “Right. Yes, it is. Thank you, Alan.”

Alan smiled, looking relieved. He crossed the remaining distance between them, and as he did so he pulled the object he had been hiding behind his back into view. Before Augustine could say anything, Alan held the object out to him and said, “Here. I got you a present.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Augustine said, as he gently took the gift from Alan’s hands. Alan shrugged, and put his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, watching as Augustine examined the gift he now held.

The object itself, whatever it was, was small, hard, and vaguely triangular. But what had Augustine biting back a smile was not the present itself, but rather the way it was wrapped. Alan had very obviously wrapped it himself. While he had used some of the wrapping paper that Augustine had left over from wrapping Alan’s own gifts about three months ago, he had not only used far more wrapping paper (and tape) than was necessary, but had patched together a wrapping job that, in some places, consisted solely of scraps of wrapping paper messily taped on top to patch holes. Alan had done his best, and Augustine was certain of that, but his best was . . . well, a six-year-old’s best. It was a total, adorable mess. Nonetheless, he had more than just wrapping paper to look at, and so after picking the best angle from which to attack the unorthodox wrapping job, Augustine dismantled it, tearing the gift free of the paper so that he could see what was inside. And when he did---when the last shreds of wrapping paper fell away---his mouth dropped open.

The gift was a watch, and that explained the shape. What he had felt was not the watch itself, but rather the case the watch was held in. But the watch . . .

The band was thick, finely crafted brown leather, embossed with a beautiful tree branch and leaf design. The timepiece was pale gold around the watch face, with the minute and hour hands a nice, copper-colored bronze. The watch face itself, meanwhile, could hardly be called one color; it gleamed with a pale rainbow shine as the light hit it, shifting depending on the way Augustine held the watch, and in the middle of the Roman numerals that marked the time was a Xerneas tree painted in black.

“Do you like it?” Alan asked.

His voice was enough to snap Augustine’s attention away from the watch, but even as he looked up at Alan, he couldn’t find his voice for a moment. When he finally did, he asked, “How . . . where did you get this?”

“I bought it,” Alan said, and when Augustine continued to stare at him, said, “I saved up money from my allowance, and also coins that Jigsaw brought home, and I bought it from a store in the mall this past weekend.” He hesitated, and then asked a bit more tentatively, “Do you like it? It’s okay if you don’t, I can---”

“I love it,” Augustine said, and once again, relief spread across Alan’s expression, complete with a pleased smile. “It’s beautiful. I just---” Augustine paused, and then smiled and shook his head. “Never mind. Thank you, Alan.”

Alan tilted his head, looking a bit perplexed, but as Augustine pulled the watch free from its case so that he could put it on, he smiled himself. “You’re welcome, Professor.”

Four days later, on the 29th, Augustine met Fulbert at Café Classe. He smiled as he saw that Fulbert was already waiting for him at one of the outdoor tables, and he took his own seat across from Fulbert with any more preamble than, “Thanks for meeting with me.”

Fulbert gave him a bemused look. “As if it’s a surprise that I would?” he said. Augustine didn’t miss the way Fulbert’s eyes swept the area around them, but before he could question it, Fulbert asked, “Where’s the pipsqueak?”

“Alan?” Augustine asked, and he couldn’t help smiling broadly, even as Fulbert hid his concern by taking a drink from his coffee. “He’s back at the lab. Sophie’s watching him.”

“Mm.” Fulbert nodded, feigning disinterest as he set his coffee cup back down.

“Actually, that’s sort of what I wanted to speak with you about,” Augustine said. Fulbert raised his eyebrows, but before he had a chance to inquire further, Augustine held his wrist out so that Fulbert could see his watch. Fulbert’s expression went neutral---too neutral to be believable. “Look. Alan gave this to me for my birthday. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Gorgeous,” Fulbert said. His tone was just as neutral as his expression. He might have bluffed a poker player, but Augustine had known him for too many years to miss what that expression and tone meant.

“It is,” Augustine agreed, and he pulled his hand back to his side of the table. “The problem is, it’s a bit confusing.”

“How?” Fulbert asked, and he snorted. “Are you telling me regional professor Augustine Sycamore doesn’t know how to use a wristwatch?”

Augustine rolled his eyes. “Of course not, and you know that.” Fulbert shrugged, still smirking a little, and Augustine continued. “What I’m telling you is that this wristwatch is both beautiful and expensive. It’s so expensive, in fact, that I’m quite positive it’s beyond a six-year-old’s budget.”

“I don’t know about that,” Fulbert said loftily. “There are some pretty spoiled six-year-olds out there. Pretty sure I saw one walking a furfrou with a diamond-studded collar the other day.”

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Augustine said. “It’s beyond my six-year-old’s budget.”

Fulbert said nothing. Instead, he took another sip from his coffee, and Augustine had to hand it to him; Fulbert was always very committed to whatever it was he chose to do, even if what he was choosing to do in this case was cover up what he did.

Unfortunately for him, Augustine could be just as stubborn.

“Alan also told me,” he went on, “that he purchased this watch last weekend at the mall. He didn’t tell me who he went with, but I know he must have gone with someone since he knows better than to leave the house alone. And given that the only time he wasn’t with me was when I was giving my seminar in Aquacorde Town . . .”

Fulbert heaved a sigh, giving in at last. “All right, all right, fine,” he snapped. “I took the kid to the mall so that he could buy you a damn present. Happy?”

“Very,” Augustine said, and he grinned as he laced his fingers together, his elbows on the table, and rested his chin upon them. Fulbert grumbled something beneath his breath that Augustine didn’t catch, but even as he did, Augustine said, “But I’m curious why you did. Do you really love me so much that you would take Alan to purchase a gift like this for me? Because if so, I have to say I’m very touched. I had no idea you felt this strongly about me.”

“I don’t,” Fulbert said bluntly, and Augustine had to resist a laugh. “This had nothing to do with---I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the kid.”

Augustine raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”

“The kid called me last week and asked me to take him shopping so he could get a gift for you,” Fulbert said. “So I took him out, he got the gift, and that was the end of it. And yeah,” he said, as Augustine opened his mouth, “it was a bit out of the kid’s budget, so I picked up the slack. But don’t tell him that; he thinks he bought it all by himself.”

“But why?” Augustine asked. “Why did you do that for him?”

“What do you mean, why?” Fulbert demanded. “I just told you why. He asked---”

“I know he asked,” Augustine interrupted. “I’m aware of it. But why did you say yes? You never do things simply because someone asks you to, Fulbert. In fact, it’s more likely you’ll say no just to be difficult.”

“That’s a damn lie.”

“It is not, and we both know it. But it also isn’t what I’m asking. Why did you agree to take Alan shopping when he asked you to? If not for me, then why?”

“Because it was important to him,” Fulbert said, with enough exasperation and impatience in his voice to suggest that admitting this was difficult. Augustine had to fight to keep from laughing. “It obviously meant a lot to him, and---stop that. Get that look off your face.”

“It meant a lot to him, and you wanted to see him happy?” Augustine suggested. He was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. Fulbert scowled at him. “You wanted him to be happy. You didn’t want to disappoint him, or make him sad. His happiness---his feelings mean a lot to you.”

“No, they don’t,” Fulbert snapped. “I don’t give a damn about him, and you know it. He’s your kid, not mine.”

“But you do care about him,” Augustine said. “You care about his feelings, and his happiness. You don’t want to let him down. You care about his well-being, at least enough to watch him in a crowded shopping mall. And you’re generous to and considerate enough of him to pick up the tab on a gift he wants to buy, because you don’t want him to be saddened or hurt by the fact that he can’t afford it. You care about him so much that even that little bit of disappointment is not something you wanted him to face.”

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this slander.”

“It’s not slander---it’s true! You care about him. You’re fond of him. After all this time, you’ve grown endeared to him,” Augustine said, and this time he did laugh a little as Fulbert glowered at him. “You care about his happiness and his well-being, and you go out of your way to make sure both are taken care of, because you’ve grown to adore him just that much. I would even go so far as to say that it is now undeniable that your heart,” Augustine drew a heart shape in the air with his fingers, “hearts hi---aah!”

One second, he was teasing Fulbert about how much he had grown to care for Alan. In the next, he found himself flat on his back, his chair up-ended courtesy of Fulbert’s foot hooking around one chair leg from beneath the table, and removing it wholesale from the ground. Augustine cringed, winded, as he rolled onto his side so that he could push himself to his feet. As he did so, he looked over to see that Fulbert had also gotten up from the table, and was already stalking away.

“Fulbert!” Augustine said, but despite the residual pain he had from being unceremoniously dumped onto the ground, he couldn’t help but huff a breathless little laugh. “Wait!”

“Goodbye, Augustine,” Fulbert called back, without turning. “Thanks for picking up the bill.”

“Wait, what?” Augustine looked at Fulbert’s half-finished coffee, and then back at his friend. “Hey! That’s not---this will make Alan sad, you know!”

Fulbert didn’t respond, save to flip Augustine a rude hand gesture over his shoulder. But while a mother nearby looked quite offended as she covered her son’s eyes, Augustine only smiled as he reached for his wallet.

Despite all of his dire warnings and assertions that Augustine was making a mistake one year ago, it seemed that Fulbert had come to care for Alan a great deal. And as far as Augustine was concerned, that was a gift all by itself.