2Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, all rights to the owners.
Pokemon isn't my usual fare, but I've always had a low-key interest in the fandom and making a story for it. Pokemon is very different from my usual fandoms of Fire Emblem and Teen Titans so I'm gonna say it's a coin-toss for how well this turns out. Also, the tone of this story is totally different from my usual fare as well.
So, uh, let's see how this turns out.
"Smoo!" The little Pokemon chirps. It wiggles its tiny arms at Marcel, and the man pats her on the head. Smoochum grabs his hand to the best of her abilities, and begins to nibble on a finger.
That's the first thing Marcel learned about Smoochum after she hatched from her egg. She always needs to have her mouth on something. The General Pokedex (an online wiki) helpfully informed him that Smoochum "explore the world through their lips", but looking at some scientific papers this mostly just means that they like to kiss things, and that's actually just because their mouths are rather itchy by nature and kissing helps alleviate the feeling.
So basically, Smoochum kissing his hand right is the equivalent of teething for a human child. Marcel actually has a few red marks on him from times when Smoochum stayed attached to one place too long.
Marcel never really intended to take in a Smoochum. Actually, he never intended to have a Pokemon at all, much less a psychic type (which are well known for their greater average intelligence than other types) which is probably more of a hassle to take care of than other types due to said intelligence. But unfortunately, the large Pokemon breeding industry that has it's center here in Solaceon town often attracts the callous type, and the local pokemon centers often have to deal with an influx of breeding rejects from individuals who never had a plan on how to take care of all the additional Pokemon that would result from them breeding the strongest possible fighter, or the best-looking contest Pokemon.
Smoochum is one of those breeding rejects. One of many. She wasn't necessarily defective or insufficient in the eyes of the breeder, it's that the breeder got what they wanted before this particular Smoochum ever hatched.
She's an adorable little thing, as you might expect of a baby Pokemon (and by that Marcel means both the classification "Baby Pokemon" and literal Pokemon infants) and surprisingly less needy than Marcel was expecting. She doesn't eat a tremendous amount, and she's more than happy to play with toys for most of the time that she isn't sleeping so long as Marcel stays in the same room as her.
All in all though, this is turning out far better than Marcel could have ever hoped. Apparently losing his job and moving out to the cheap retiree town because he couldn't afford his city apartment anymore was a better choice than he initially thought. He would never have gotten Smoochum otherwise.
"Little one, you need to stop or else I'm going to get another mark." Marcel murmurs tiredly. He gently pries Smoochum's mouth off his hand. Smoochum whines, and pushes away the toy Marcel tries to give her to pacify her. Again she wiggles her hands at him, and Marcel realizes the obvious.
"Ah, sorry." He picks up the little Pokemon and lets her settle against his chest. She's a baby, of course she's going to want hugs.
It still feels strange to hold her though. Hopefully he'll get used to it. He still doesn't feel like he should be the one doing this. Surely there was a better candidate...
###
"Smoochum!"
"Yes little one?"
"Smoo! Smoochum!" She points at his computer screen and waddles over to the keyboard. "Smoochum!"
"Curious, are we?" Marcel smiles.
"Smoochum!" The little Pokemon nods.
"It's complicated, and boring." Marcel says. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Smoochum!" Smoochum nods and promptly sits on his desk, ready to listen.
So Marcel tries his best to explain the basics of coding and mechanical engineering to a Pokemon who's never used a computer nor seen the internal workings of anything mechanical before.
In the end, Marcel takes apart a small mechanical toy to show Smoochum how it works, and explains to her that fixing these sorts of mechanical things is his job, except he fixes things at the Pokemon Center and not simple toys.
Smoochum, to his surprise, doesn't lose interest. Marcel is fairly sure the Pokemon only understands half of what he says, maybe less, and is more interested in watching him take apart the toy than what he's saying, at least she listens all the way through.
Marcel doesn't quite know how long it took before Smoochum actually started to understand him. For the first month and a half she clearly didn't. She would react to sound, and maybe the tone of his voice, but aside from her name she clearly had no idea what Marcel was saying. Some time between the two and three month period Marcel started to realize Smoochum actually understood some of what he says, and by four months he could say almost anything and Smoochum would get the gist of it.
She's very smart. She's also growing up remarkably quickly. Not physically; she no longer fits in one hand but she still only comes up to half the height of his knee. Her growth is mostly mental. She no longer has severe separation anxiety, she's smart enough to be able to open cabinets and use her weak psychic powers to open doors. She's also become more patient, and will wait for meal times before asking for food whereas before she would just whine whenever she started to feel hungry (and Marcel would still feed her of course, she was young enough that he didn't feel comfortable trying to make her stick to meal times).
She's also smart enough that she's no longer entertained by simple dolls and building blocks, so Marcel upgraded to Lego (which Smoochum thoroughly enjoys) and some physical games like rolling a ball back and forth between the two of them (because Smoochum isn't physically agile enough for catch, and using her powers would negate the whole point).
Marcel also doesn't feel totally incompetent in caring for her anymore, which he supposes is good.
###
"Smoo?" The little Pokemon chirps softly at Marcel when he walks through the door.
"Hello little one." The man says with a tired attempted smile. "Were you nice to the daycare workers?"
"Smoochum." She nods rapidly.
Marcel can't exactly bring Smoochum to work at the Pokemon Center, so he's forced to leave her at the daycare for most of the day. Thankfully his working hours are rather short (as the Pokemon Center's machinery is very stable for the most part, and without an actual mechanical failure his only daily duty is to do simple maintenance) but he doesn't like leaving Smoochum out of his care for hours a day. It makes him feel like a negligent parent.
The little Pokemon toddles over to him and hugs his leg, and Marcel leans down and scoops Smoochum up in his arms. "And were they nice to you?"
"Smoochum!" The Pokemon affirms. She cuddles into his chest.
"Good." He mumbles. "Let's go then."
Marcel has noticed he tends to get a bit of attention when he takes Smoochum anywhere. Maybe it's because he carries her around rather than her trying to walk beside him (she's very slow because of her short legs, not to mention clumsy) and he never puts her in her pokeball (he actually forgot to capture her for her first month of life before Nurse Joy brought it up). He isn't sure if the attention is a good thing, so he avoids taking Smoochum out into very public places as much as he can.
Marcel is also worried about something else. As of late Smoochum has become very insistent on affection. She doesn't demand it from him, the opposite in fact, she demands (or more accurately she complains if she can't) to be able to show affection to him. It's… odd… and no online source has been able to suggest a reason for this behavior.
It's times like these Marcel really wishes he was psychic, or an aura-user, or just has more experience with Pokemon in general so he could at least hazard an educated guess at Smoochum's behaviour rather than guessing blind. Sadly, a blind guess is all he can manage, and he doesn't feel comfortable acting on information from a guess.
It doesn't seem to be a problem, but it worries him to not understand Smoochum's intent. It might be something to keep an eye on. Additionally… Smoochum is now half a year old. Pokemon don't generally spend much more than half a year in a baby form because the entire point of a baby form is to be a transitory stage (unlike a first stage pokemon like Ralts). Baby Pokemon, as with other pokemon, are (usually) born during their parent species' mating season, and Baby Pokemon generally reach their next stage by half a year because that usually means they've been alive for the best two seasons for that Pokemon's existence and need to evolve to survive the other two seasons. A Budew, for example, would be born at the start of spring and evolve into Roselia to survive fall and winter. For Smoochum, they would be born at the start of fall, and would be expected to evolve when spring starts.
That specific season cycle isn't quite what Marcel's Smoochum is operating on, she was born mid-summer after all, but from what he can find online this shouldn't affect the usual six month cycle too much. There might be a change of two months more or less, but no real negative effects.
So maybe he shouldn't worry yet, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on.
###
It's been a year. Smoochum still hasn't evolved. She's also hiding things from Marcel. She's not hiding physical objects, no, she's hiding behaviours. Specifically she's hiding her competence at certain things.
Marcel found out Smoochum was hiding behaviours from him by talking to the daycare workers. He made a comment about how clumsy she was, only for the workers to note that she seemed very well coordinated to them. That struck him as odd, because at home she's toddling around and stumbling frequently like she always has. Indeed though, a little bit of spying revealed Smoochum could indeed be coordinated if she felt like it. She can walk perfectly fine and doesn't have to toddle awkwardly like she does when he's around. She's also more competent at general tasks than Marcel was aware of. Her psychic powers can actually lift fairly heavy objects that at home Marcel would lift, and she is well aware how to use a number of appliances that Marcel has never seen her even try to use like a microwave or stove, and apparently she is quite sharp when it comes to discerning the intentions and emotions of others (Marcel always thought she somewhat self-centered, as you'd expect of a child).
It's strange for Marcel to realize he doesn't know Smoochum as well as he thought he did. The daycare workers apparently know more about his little girl than he does, which is a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps he's not doing as good a job taking care of her as he expected.
Smoochum has continued to be oddly affectionate, which is something Marcel still can't figure out and is not something Smoochum demonstrates towards other people. As much as he might be flattered, he's also worried that it isn't exactly normal and that he might be somehow negatively influencing her.
This might be something to talk to an expert about…
###
"So first of all, physically Smoochum is fine. There is nothing wrong with her." The Pokemon specialist says. "And from Kirlia's talk with her, we know she's been capable of evolution for several months and has not been doing so out of choice."
"Ah." Marcel glances down at Smoochum who is sitting in his lap and nibbling on a berry. She looks back up at him innocently.
"Mentally, she is also fine. We found no significant signs of any sort of mental illness." The specialist says. "She's not overly-attached, no more than you'd expect of a Pokemon towards a parent anyways. That might be more attachment than one could expect a Pokemon to have towards a trainer of one and a half years, but it's to be expected considering her situation."
That relieves Marcel. More than anything he was worried her attachment was symptomatic of something negative. "So what about the other behaviours? The fact that she's hiding activities from me?"
"That has to do with you." The specialist says. Maybe he notices Marcel tensing up, so he quickly clarifies. "She is not afraid of you, if that is what you're thinking. She's worried."
Marcel blinks. "Worried?"
"Yes, worried." The specialist nods. "She told us that she hides some behaviours to give you something to do."
Those words don't make sense to Marcel. Give him something to do? What does that mean? He has a job, and he's not exactly lazy at home either. "What do you mean?"
"I mean she intentionally gives you ways to help her, even if she could do things herself." The specialist says. "She's under the impression that you're… depressed, or at least stressed, and that you need something to take care of. That is also the reason for her constant affection, and not just that you are her father."
Marcel notices the use of 'father' rather than 'trainer', and silently decides that the term is probably accurate. What the specialist told him overall is far from what he expected though. He was expecting to be the cause of the issues, but wasn't expecting the issues to be non-issues in a sense. Smoochum is totally fine, and the only 'issue' is that she's trying to take care of him by letting him take care of her.
"I hope this goes without saying, but the best way to help Smoochum is going to be to help yourself." The specialist says simply. "And actually talking through the problem with Smoochum."
"I can't understand her though." Marcel says. "I didn't grow up around Pokemon, Smoochum is my first, I can't read body language."
"Better to start late than not start at all."
###
"Jyyyynx!" The Pokemon whines. She uses the exact same inflection you'd expect of an embarrassed teenager saying "Daaaaad!" and squirms against his hug.
"Sorry Jynx, but you can't expect me not to wish my little girl good luck on the first day of her first job." Marcel says cheerfully.
Jynx's new coworkers all find this very amusing. To them, it almost seems like nothing has changed. Jynx is going to work at the daycare; apparently the workers made quite an impression on her as a Smoochum. She even learned some moves specifically to help with the job like Sing and Wish.
"Now remember to be patient and stay calm, and ask the others if you aren't sure what to do-"
"Jynx Jynx Jynx. Jynx..."
Marcel can understand that. She's saying something along the lines of "I know Dad. Geeze...". He raises his hands in surrender and moves back to the car, waving at his little girl as he does so, and eventually gets in the car and drives to his own job.
I have no idea how to feel about this story to be honest. I've never written this style of story before, nor have I ever written for this fandom, so I don't have a sense on how well it will be received.
Well, even if this isn't well-received, it was fun to write. I suppose that alone makes it worthwhile.
