(Original DA Post: January 31, 2017)

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Incinerate and Blaze got into the car and drove home from school. Incinerate was quiet for the entire ride. He slouched in his seat and looked straight ahead. He had an angry expression on his face. Blaze looked over at him and noticed the way he was sitting was a little odd for Incinerate. Usually he’s staring out the window or on his phone.

“...You okay, man?” Blaze asked, not sure if he should even bother him at this point.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be better when i get home.” Incinerate replied.

“Oh...alright.” Blaze said, not really sure what his brother meant.

They pulled into the driveway. They were the only ones home. The two got out of the car and walked into the house. They dropped their bags in the closet by the door and Incinerate walked into the kitchen. After a few seconds Blaze heard him opening and closing cabinets. He followed Incinerate into the kitchen. “What are you looking for?” He asked.

Incinerate pulled a bottle that contained a clear liquid out of one of the cabinets over the fridge. “This.” He replied.

“Uh...why do you need that?” Blaze asked.

“I need to...alleviate stress.” answered Incinerate and he opened the nearly half filled bottle.

“I didn’t think drinking was how you did that.” Blaze said.

“I’m trying something new.” Incinerate said as he drank some straight from the bottle.

“Uh, dude, I don’t think you should-”

“Shut up, I’m doing it. I’ve heard it works so I’m gonna do it.” Incinerate snapped. He continued to drink from the bottle until it was mostly gone. He put the bottle down and pushed it aside. He felt dizzy and leaned against the counter to hold himself up.

“You okay, dude?” Blaze asked.

“Huh?” Incinerate looked over to Blaze, but all he saw was a blurry mess. He squinted his eyes to try and see him better, which led to him seeing a distorted image of Blaze. He started to giggle. “You look funny.”

“Um...thanks. Are you okay?” He asked again.

“What are you talkin’ about, I’m FINE!” Incinerated shouted. “I’m...I’m fuckin’ hungry now.” He looked over at a big watermelon sitting on the counter against the wall. He stumbled over to it and rolled it away from the wall a bit. He wobbled over to the other side of the counter and grabbed a giant knife from the wooden holder it was in.

“Uh here dude, I'll cut it for you.” Blaze said nervously as he tried to take the knife from Incinerate.

“No, I’m doing it!” Incinerate refused, keeping the knife out of Blaze’s reach. Blaze backed away a little bit, staying cautious of the fact that Incinerate could accidentally hurt him or himself at any moment. The drunken Incinerate wobbled back over to the watermelon and put the knife down onto the surface of it, the point of the blade facing Incinerate. Seeing this, Blaze tried to jump in again to stop Incinerate from cutting, but no matter how many times he tried, Incinerate refused and eventually started swinging the knife around when Blaze got close. He wasn’t sure what to do, so he tried to stall Incinerate as much as he could, hoping that someone would come home in the meantime.

“I’m...you...you’re not gonna cut it cause I’m gonna cut it cause I...am a chef.” Incinerate said, not even looking Blaze in the face. He continued trying to cut the melon, talking as he did so.

“See, you just gotta do it like this.” he said as he barely even moved the knife. He was pushing down hard with the knife, thinking it would just go through no matter what.

“I really think you should just put the knife down, Incinerate.” Blaze tried once more, but Incinerate just glared at him from the corner of his eye and pushed down harder on the knife.

Eventually, the knife slipped off the watermelon and went straight into Incinerate’s left eye. Blaze let out a loud gasp right as what he was fearing had actually happened in front of him. Incinerate dropped the blade, which fell to the floor, along with a good amount of his blood. He didn’t give any reaction, just standing there silently until his legs started to shake and his head starting spinning even more than before. His whole body began fiercely shivering as he looked down at the puddle of blood on the floor.

“Well, that’s...not g-good.” He managed to say before passing out on the floor, his eye still bleeding fast. Blaze snapped out of his shock and panicked as he ran over to Incinerate and shook him, trying to get him to wake up as he dialed 911 on his phone.

Froaker sat in his car, stuck in traffic as rush hour hit. He had the radio on, but had the volume turned pretty low, just to have something on in the background as he waited for the sea of cars to move. He let out a sigh as he knew the wait was going to be a long one. He had gone out to run a few errands, hoping to have made it back home before everyone hit the road. He looked at the road up ahead and was able to see flashing orange lights.

“Great...construction.” He said to himself. He sat back in his seat, trying to get comfortable in the leather chair. He jumped a little when his phone started to ring, vibrating loudly against the plastic of the cupholder it was sitting in. He picked it up and read the name of the caller, which was Blaze. He answered.

“Hey Blaze.” He said, sounding a little tired.

“Incinerate it in the hospital!!” Blaze shouted through the phone. Froaker’s eyes widened and his heart skipped as he processed what Blaze said.

“W-w-wait, what? Is he okay? What happened?” Froaker asked, starting to panic.

“I’ll explain when you get here, just get here quick!” Blaze said.

“Wait, I can’t ge-” Froaker started as he heard the phone click off. He tried calling Blaze back but there was no answer. He started calling Crus.

“Hello?” Slash picked up instead.

“Slash? Incinerate is in the hospital! Blaze just called me but it got cut off.” Froaker nervously explained.

“I know, we’re on our way there right now!” Slash replied. “Crus is driving, he couldn’t pick up. We should be there any minute. Where are you?” He explained.

“I’m stuck in fucking traffic! There’s construction up ahead, I could be here for hours!” Froaker yelled into the phone.

“Shit, he’s stuck in tons of traffic.” Froaker heard Slash explain to Crus.

“Did Blaze say what happened? Is Incinerate alright??” Froaker asked, hoping to hear that he was okay.

“He said they took Incinerate to the back, and he hasn’t heard anything yet. He said they were still back there with him when he called us.”

“Dammit.” Froaker said as he held his hand to his head. He was starting to get a headache. “Alright just...call me when you guys get there. I need to know what’s going on. I’ll get there as soon as I can, but it’ll probably be a long time. And don’t say anything to Espea just yet. They just left for vacation, and knowing her, she’ll be having a panic attack the entire time if she doesn't know all the details.”

“Alright man, just take it easy. We’ll keep you updated.” Slash said before they both hung up. Froaker sat back in his chair slowly, his eyes wide open as he worried about what was going on over at the hospital.

Blaze sat in his seat, staring down towards the ground and twiddling his thumbs as he waited for others to arrive and he worried about the condition of his brother in the wherever he was of the hospital. The waiting room was fairly empty, only a few other people were there besides the nurse at the desk. He heard the main doors open and Crus and Slash ran in. As soon as they got to Blaze he hugged the two of them together. He was shaking.

“Thank god you guys are here. I’m so scared.” Blaze said. His feathers were covered in his brother’s dried blood.

“Have they told you anything yet?” Crus asked.

“No, they just said they could be back there a while with him. I don’t know what to do.” Blaze said nervously.

“It’s alright, just calm down.” said Slash. “Now what exactly happened?”

“Incinerate was upset about something on the way home from school, and when we got home, he started drinking something and he got drunk and then tried to cut a watermelon and I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t let me stop him so then he kept trying to cut it and it slipped and went into his eye.” Blaze said, followed by deep breaths.

“Woah, woah, slow down. Take a breath. It’s his eye?” Slash said.

“Yeah. Then after it happened he sorta just looked down and then fainted.” Blaze continued. “Is Froaker on his way?”

“He said he’s stuck in a ton of traffic, but he’ll get here as soon as he can.” Slash said.

“Alright.” Blaze sighed.

After a few minutes of waiting around, a Blissey wearing a white coat and hat came out of one of the doors leading to the operating rooms.

“Mr. Blaze?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s me.” Blaze answered. “Is Incinerate okay?”

“The doctors told me that his left eye needed to be removed. They said he has some other cuts around his eye, but they’re not serious. They could still be a little while with him, but they wanted me to tell you that everything is going fine and that the only major damage was to his eye.” the nurse explained.

“So he’s just missing one of his eyes?” Crus asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“O-okay. Thank you.” Crus said. The nurse walked back behind the doors.

“I’m gonna call Froaker.” said Slash as he woke up his phone.

Froaker jumped again at the sound of his phone vibrating. He picked it up and answered.

“Slash? Are you guys there?” He asked.

“Yeah, we got here a little while ago. The nurse just came out and told us some stuff.”

“What did they say!?” Froaker shouted, nearly cutting Slash off.

Slash pulled the phone away from him, rubbing his ear after having Froaker yell right into it. After a second to recover, he put the phone back to his ear and continued.

“They said that they have to remove his left eye and that there are some cuts around it, but other than that he will be fine.”

Froaker put his head back in his chair, not saying anything, taking everything in. He stared straight up and didn’t blink.

“...Froaker?” Slash asked, hearing silence on the other line.

Froaker snapped out of it and blinked a few times before responding. “Uh, yeah, I’m still here. Uh...so, they took his eye out? Have you guys seen him?”

“No, they said it could take a little longer. How’s the traffic?” Slash asked.

“I think I’ve moved ten feet in last hour. I can see the lights up ahead, though, so maybe it’ll be clear past that.”

“Hope so. Alright, well, we’ll call you again when we find out some more stuff.” Slash said with a sigh. He hung up the phone and went back to sit with Crus and Blaze.

“They said we will be able to go see him in a little bit, but he’s gonna be sleeping.” Crus told him.

“Oh god, I don’t wanna see him hooked up to a bunch of wires and stuff.” Blaze said.

“It’ll be okay. At least we know he’s going to be alright.” Crus said as he rubbed Blaze’s back, trying to help him relax a little.

Froaker sat in his seat, still sick of the traffic and anxious to get over to the hospital. The sea of cars was moving a little faster now, and he was getting close to the construction lights. After another twenty five minutes of sitting in traffic, he finally made it up to the site of the construction, and after it was clear. As he passed by the workers, he rolled down his window and gave them the finger before driving off.

He picked up his phone and called Slash.

“Hey Froaker.” Slash answered.

“Slash, I’m finally out of traffic. I’ll be there as soon as I can. These stupid fucktards took up every lane except for one.” Froaker said.

“Um...okay then. Glad you’re on your way. They said we should be able to go in and see him pretty soon, but he’ll be sleeping still.” Slash told him.

“Okay, good. God, I hope he’s not gonna be in a lot of pain when he wakes up. And I hope he doesn’t wake up while I’m not there.” Froaker said, trying to focus on the road and talk at the same time.

“I don’t think he’ll wake up for a while. I’ll text you if they let us in before you are here.” Slash said.

“Alright, thanks. Hopefully I’ll be there withi-” Froaker started before he heard a siren behind him. He let out a loud, aggravated yell that went on for about five seconds.

“...You okay?” Slash asked, hesitantly.

“There’s a fucking cop.” Froaker said angrily. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone and pulled over on the side of the road. He waited for the policeman, a rather burly Arcanine, to get out of his car and approach Froaker’s window. Froaker rolled down the window so that he could speak with the officer.

“Yes, can I help you?” He said in an annoyed tone.

The Arcanine rest his elbow on Froaker’s car door. “Hey buddy, I was just letting you know you’ve got a tail light out.” The officer said.

“Oh. Okay, well thanks for telling me but I really gotta-” Froaker began.

“I’m not gonna write you a ticket or anything, I’ll just let you off with a warning.” He said, his beefy arm still resting on Froaker’s door right next to his face. “This is a nice car you’ve got here.” The officer continued.

“Oh, um...thank you, that’s uh...very nice of you.” Froaker said, putting his hand on the officer’s bicep lightly. He looked at it for a second before snapping out of it and clearing his throat. “Um, b-but I really should, uh...get going. You see, my son-” Froaker started again, his face starting to sweat a little.

“Tell you what, take my number and if you need any help replacing that light or with anything else on your car, give me a call and I’ll gladly help you out. Have a nice rest of your evening.” The officer scribbled on his notepad and then ripped the paper off and handed it to Froaker. He then tipped his hat and smiled before returning to his car and driving off. Froaker sat there confused and a little in shock. He looked at the little paper he was handed, which just had the man’s phone number written on it as well as his name - Arty.
“Alright then.” Froaker sighed and stuffed the paper into his glove compartment. He started his car back up and continued on his way to the hospital.

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Whoops, Incinerate had an ouchie.

I didn't know how descriptive I wanted to get with Incinerate's...bleeding. Oh well, I did what I thought wouldn't be too disturbing. Also, points to me for using one of the most cliche pokemon for a nurse.

P.S. I can't draw cars/car interiors or muscles.