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The sixth chapter of "Radio Static," in which there are rumors.

DISCLAIMER: Pokemon and all of its characters belong to Nintendo/Game Freak; I'm just borrowing them for fun.

Words: 3,265

What he was doing to himself was bad, and he knew that. But how could he stop, how could he let himself rest when his brother might still be out there?

Ever since he and Elesa had had their talk, Emmet had been searching practically every second that he wasn’t working. She had clearly noticed, and had already made her concern apparent to him. Each time, he had assured her that he would be more diligent in taking care of himself. They both knew it was a lie.

He did his best to remember, if only not to worry anyone. He’s already caused them, especially Elesa, so much grief. But sometimes, it felt like if he stopped for even a second, even just to sleep for a few hours, he wouldn’t be able to start back up again. It was hard to remember even the most urgent of his own needs when he had that weighing over his head.

He knew it was wrong, maybe even selfish. But he couldn’t stand the thought of giving up on his brother when he felt like he was finally close to some kind of hint, sign, anything.

A passenger glanced at him nervously. He realized how tight the expression on his face was, and tried to relax his brow, and to instead focus on the sound of the train thundering through the tunnel around him.

Just breathe, he thought to himself. Remember what you talked about.

Emmet’s brother was missing. This was a fact. He had no clue where he could have been. All of the reasonable places he could have been found had long been searched dozens of times over. They had not even found the smallest clue as to where he had gone. This was also a fact.

Another fact: Emmet had thought his brother was dead for months, and had recently begun to think he might not be. And yet…

He is probably already dead, anyway, if he wasn’t at first, he couldn’t help but think. He is already dead or he is going to be soon, because you are wasting your time and you are not going to make it and-

Stop, he thought. Take a breath.

Three in, three out; just like he used to tell his brother.

Panicking will not help you find Ingo any faster. Think about the facts. Think about what you know for sure.

Deep breath in. One, two, three. Deep breath out. Okay.

Ingo had been missing for almost half a year, and Emmet had been conducting his own search for about half of that time. His worries had not gotten any easier to handle with time.

Dragons knew he was trying, but as much as he knew, logically, that the best way to help his brother was to calm down and just focus on the facts, he just couldn’t stop his mind from going through all of the worst possible scenarios.

It had been a bad habit of his for a very long time.

“Being prepared for the worst is good,” Ingo had once told him. “But getting too wrapped up in hypotheticals can only lead to derailment. It would be best to focus on what is happening in front of you. Just take a breath, it’s alright. Disaster has not struck yet, and we know what to do if it does.”

Except for this time, he thought woefully. And how could they, even with their meticulousness with most everything they did?

Ingo had usually been able to tell when Emmet got too far off-track, be it from worry, distraction, or anything else. He was usually able to bring him back down when he started to spiral into such thoughts, and Emmet would do the same for him.

Now, though, Ingo wasn’t there to help Emmet stay in check. He was trying, but it was very difficult. His brother was missing, without a single lead as to his whereabouts even with all of the time that had passed, to the point where he had been convinced he wasn’t anywhere to be found at all. To say he was worried would be a gross understatement.

Somehow, though, his own fear was not his largest obstruction.

Here was another fact: Emmet had been the last person to see Ingo. This was not surprising. They worked together, they lived together, and they were arguably the most important person in each other’s lives.

The two of them had gone into the tunnels, as they had seen something strange on the cameras and had decided to investigate it together. Somewhere along the way, they had gotten separated.

Emmet had not found anything, and assumed the same for Ingo. He had called out for him, and had gotten no reply. He hadn’t thought very much of it at the time; the tunnels were quite expansive, and he may have already left them. Not very long later, his brother disappeared.

From an outsider’s perspective, the story was as follows:

The two of them went into the tunnels. Emmet came back out. Ingo did not.

Emmet had not initially believed that this specific detail held very much importance. Others, however, seemed to disagree.

Despite how hard he had been working to help find Ingo, or even just the smallest hint at where he might have gone, some believed that he was to blame for his brother’s disappearance.

Personally, Emmet did not take much offense to this, despite how much it hurt to hear. The first suspect is almost always either the one who last saw the person in question, or the one personally closest to them. Emmet just so happened to be both. If he was anyone else, he would not have entirely written himself off as a suspect, either.

Besides; they were right, in a way.

The train pulled to a stop, and he disembarked with the rest of the passengers. Despite the way the muffled mess of sound around him made his head pound, the way the bodies accidentally brushing against him felt like sandpaper even through his coat, it felt nice.

In the thick of the crowd, he felt that, for a moment, he could be no one. Just another person in the sea of people that flowed in and out of the station each day. Free from scrutiny and the public eye.

But he was never truly free from it, because he could never be without himself. Himself, to blame and to be blamed by. Sometimes he made himself so sick, he thought it a miracle he was even functioning as suboptimally as he was.

If he had only made sure to stay by Ingo’s side, if he had only thought to find him sooner, to reach out, or had just done something, anything differently, then he might have still been with him. He would have done anything just to know that his brother was safe and alive.

Please be alive.

He had to be. Somewhere, he had to still be alive, and Emmet would find him and bring him home. That had to be the truth, because if it was not, then Emmet would not know what to do with himself.

He could already feel himself coming apart at the seams, more and more with each passing day, hour, each minute that Ingo was still gone.

So, no, he would not have hurt his brother. He could barely live without him while knowing it was temporary (and it was, because it had to be). He knew this. Others, who did not know him, who could not see into his mind, did not. And Emmet did not blame them, nor did he think it was a very big issue, despite how their numbers were growing more and more by the day.

Not everyone agreed with this.

As the crowd parted, spreading out towards different destinations, the spell was broken, and reality hurtled back into him at lightspeed. He thought he spied a familiar figure, but it seemed a bit early. As he moved out of the way of the other arriving people, he checked his watch. Yes, it was almost noon, and Elesa typically came to the station closer to two in the afternoon.

While he was distracted, she had weaved between the groups of travelers and made her way over to him.

“Hello, Elesa,” he greeted. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but isn’t it a bit early for you to be here?”

She scratched at a spot just below her ear, and glanced about. Nervous.

“We finished the shoot early,” was all she offered. She said something else; he thought she might’ve asked him something, but it got lost in the noise around them.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” he asked.

“I asked if we could go somewhere less crowded,” she said, her voice raised quite a bit but still barely audible. He didn’t even want to try to shout over the din, so he simply nodded and beckoned her to follow him to his office.

As they made their way there, he was suddenly very glad she had asked it of him; he hadn’t much time to spare, but he realized then just how much he needed to be away from all the noise and the swarms of people.

As he gently closed the door, it felt as though they entered a vacuum chamber, shutting out everything beyond those beige walls. Unfortunately, the sudden silence only seemed to accentuate his headache.

He gestured for Elesa to sit down; he and his brother technically had their own offices, but it was simply easier to work next to each other, even if they didn’t actually need to be together to communicate.

As she gingerly took a seat in the chair adjacent to his desk, he settled into the one behind it. It felt like a strangely clinical affair, quiet and sterile. He wasn’t typically one to break the silence, but Elesa must have come for a reason, and it was clear she wouldn’t offer it on her own.

“So, Elesa… Was there something you needed to tell me?” he asked, hoping it sounded genuine and not impatient.

She clasped her hands in her lap, over her rapidly bouncing leg.

“Yes, actually,” she said. “It’s just… well, it’s not easy to say. It’s probably even harder to hear.”

“I’m sure I can handle whatever it is,” he said. He figured that nothing could really make their situation any worse than it already was. They were already living the worst-case scenario. Still, he was nervous; Elesa wasn’t one to make a fuss over nothing.

“If you’re sure,” she said, fidgeting with her hair. She took a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to help. “Emmet, there’s… well, you know better than anyone how the investigation is going,” she said.

He stood up straighter at the mention, and leaned forward, paying her his full attention.

“...Go on,” he said, flat even by his own standards.

Her fingers drummed an anxious beat against her knee. “Well, lately, there’s been some… rumors. About you, specifically,” she said, looking as though she feared saying it too loud would summon those spreading it.

“Oh, that? I already know,” he said. Was that all it was?

She gaped at him. “You knew? For how long?”

“Of course I knew,” he said, confused. “No one’s exactly subtle about it. Really, it’s the natural conclusion to draw, even as silly as it is in reality.”

“So you’ve known people were saying that about you the whole time?” she asked, disbelieving. “And you never thought to bring it up?”

“What is there to say? People lie about other people all the time,” he stated.

Her leg bounced faster. “This is different. This could get you into serious trouble,” she said.

He couldn’t help a small laugh. It felt condescending, but his guilt was mostly covered by his incredulity.

She bristled. “I’m serious, Em! I really think-”

“I am aware, Elesa,” Emmet interrupted, something he usually tried to avoid, especially with someone he cared about and respected as much as her. Unfortunately, Emmet really didn’t have the patience to sit around discussing rumors that they both knew were untrue, not when he could be doing… well, pretty much anything else.

He wanted to say that he appreciated her worry, even if he believed it to be unfounded. But he was not a liar, even with the things he told himself.

“We both know that what they are saying is wrong. I do not see the point in discussing it further. I need to go now,” he said shortly (another thing he typically tried to avoid; he would have to apologize for his manners later), and got up to leave.

Quicker than he, she stood up with him and blocked his exit. If he pushed past her to leave anyway, he knew she wouldn’t fight it. Still, the naked concern and heartbreak in her eyes gave him pause.

He sighed. He knew she meant well, but they were wasting time. Still, he stopped. He felt guilty, seeing how visibly relieved she was by that; ever since Ingo had disappeared, she had seemed to be anxious whenever he was out of her sight, as though she feared he might vanish, too.

He owed her so many apologies, and so many thank-yous.

She took a deep breath, and sighed.

“I know that it’s not true, and I know that dwelling on it isn’t going to help us find Ingo,” she said. Emmet almost asked what her point was, but she looked him in the eyes and spoke over him. “But, that’s not the point. The point is that this is going to have serious consequences for you if it starts spreading further around.

“If a large enough group of people starts to believe that this… theory has any validity, they’re going to want answers, and they won’t be happy with any you can give unless it’s what they’re already expecting to hear.”

Emmet blinked.

“I do not see your point,” he said, confused (and somewhat impatient).

Elesa eyebrows shot up, before furrowing again in frustration. “You-” she cut herself off with a groan. “Emmet, you need to take this seriously. What happens if something else comes up, and it starts to sound legitimate? What if investigators start getting in your way instead of helping you? What if it starts getting media attention? There’s no doubt you'll be hounded and harassed at every turn.”

“I am Emmet. I still do not see your point. Say it does get more attention. So what? As of now, there is no body, or anything else to suggest that any sort of crime took place here the night Ingo disappeared. I could not have been involved in a crime that, by all means, never occurred,” he pointed out, pushing down his nausea at his own flippant way of discussing the incident in favor of a neutral tone.

“Maybe so,” Elesa said. “But that’s just based on what we know right now. Something else could always come up, legitimate or not. They could search your apartment. You could get questioned again.”

“I have nothing left to tell them. Nothing would change,” he said.

Elesa was growing visibly agitated. Clearly struggling to avoid raising her voice, she said, “It’s not as simple as that. Do you really think every single person who confesses to a crime is guilty? How do you think that ends up happening, if they aren’t? And I’m… I’m already worried about you, and there aren’t too many people invested in this idea yet. If it keeps up, if it gets bigger, who knows how it’ll affect you.”

He knew what she was implying. It almost hurt to hear from her. But he also knew she meant well. He was not offended. Mostly.

“And- and- look,” she said, gaining back his attention. “Let’s say that doesn’t happen, or there’s not enough other evidence, or the validity of it is questioned. Let’s say there’s no legal ramifications for you. It doesn’t necessarily matter to everyone else what a courtroom decides, if you really did anything or not, or if, legally at least, Ingo may as well have simply got up and walked away. They’ll believe what they want to, regardless.”

She moved to grab his shoulders, wanting to get his full attention, but thought better of it. Emmet was grateful for that. His skin was crawling and his stomach was churning; he didn’t think he could have handled being touched at that moment.

“Just… there’s just more to it than that. Reporters, everyday people who want information that you just don’t have, or Dragons forbid want to take justice into their own hands. Even if you didn’t do anything, this could get dangerous for you. I just worry,” she finished.

Emmet hated being wrong. But he was not sure how to refute that. Emmet had meant it when he said he understood where the rumors were coming from. They would have been the same had his and Ingo’s positions been switched. But he would have been lying if he had said that some of the things he overheard did not get to him, sometimes.

“...Even so, what am I meant to do about it?” Emmet asked.

Elesa sighed, though this time she seemed more relieved than anything, her shoulders sagging as if a weight had just been lifted from her. “Just… try to lay low for a while. No reporters, no media, no nothing. Just- just stay safe, alright? I know you want to find Ingo - we all do. But don’t put your own safety at risk,” she said, then hesitated. “He wouldn’t want that.”

Emmet was almost insulted. Her phrasing made it sound like he was dead. She had been the one to convince him not to believe that in the first place. He bit his tongue, though, and nodded; he knew what she meant. And besides, she was right.

More importantly, though, he couldn’t help Ingo if he let those people and their theories get in his way. He didn’t have time to waste entertaining their paranoid suspicions, and anything he said would only be interpreted in the worst light possible.

Elesa was right. It would be best if he laid low for a bit while he worked to bring Ingo home. He already had his hands full with his regular responsibilities at the station - he couldn't afford to have anything else cut into his time spent searching.

For as long as he could, he would do what he could to avoid publicly discussing it, and just try to fulfill his duties - both as Ingo’s brother, and as a Subway Master.

For Ingo, he told himself.

For Ingo.

Emmet glanced at the clock. He would need to head back to work, soon. She had caught him in the middle of his break, and he’d need to leave right about then in order to make it on time. Elesa followed his eyes, and understood.

Before he left, she hugged him tight, and he leaned into it. She wiped her eyes as they parted.

“Just… take care of yourself, okay?” she asked.

“Okay,” he said, and this time, he meant it (but didn’t he always?). “You as well.”

He didn’t like how surprised she seemed to hear that.

He held the door open for her as they both exited the room. He straightened his cap and headed off, waving one final goodbye.

He took a deep breath, and headed off toward his assigned platform.

It would be alright.