Chapter Text
When his mum saw him standing in the doorway, sheepish grin and all, she’d cried.
It was the good kind of cry, though, so Leon didn’t feel too bad for crying a little himself, when he got pulled into a tight, tight hug. There was something fundamentally comforting about his mum, this vast, encompassing warmth that reminded Leon of being small and scared, and then instantly reassured, the moment she was there to hold him and promise it would be alright.
It would be alright.
He’d never done anything quite as scary, as standing in the center of the Stadium, the day before, and announcing to the world that both him and Gloria would be stepping away from League business. Hop had known and looked at him with bright, loving eyes, as always, not a hint of disappointment, just the way Gloria had assured him he would. His parents had known, of course – they had to, he had to tell them, he’d called them, months before, after an embarrassing breakdown with Raihan on the phone, and his father had said, to hell with it, come home, and his mother had promised he’d always had a home, with them, and then…
But he’d still stood there, under the judging eye of the audience – the audience was everything, whispered the voice in the back of his head, the one that sounded like Rose had, when they’d first met, fatherly and kind and not at all monstrous like – and braced himself for outrage. For fury. For the endless tsunami of disappointment and hate to wash over him, the same way every nightmare he’d ever had played out in his head, for years.
It only occurred to him, now, to wonder if those nightmares had been nightmares only because he’d been wanting this freedom since forever, and he’d always been told he could never have it. But whenever he stumbled on the thought, he felt sad, rather than angry. People kept expecting him to be angry about so many things, ever since Rose had gone mad and tried to invoke the Darkest Day, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be truly angry about it. Not about anything that was supposedly done to him, at least – oh, he’d been furious, when Raihan had told him, about Piers and Spikemuth, and the right descriptor was livid, when he’d gone and realized that had not been an isolated case, but a well-worn weapon in Rose’s business arsenal, blackmailing and blacklisting and otherwise bulldozing over other’s lives, and now Leon had spent god knew how long trying to restitute those whose livelihoods were ruined for the sake of Rose’s vision for Galar – because at least himself, he thought, he’d gone in, eyes-wide open, and every time, he’d had a choice.
He’d been ten, sure, when he started, but he’d had a choice, and he could see, looking back, step by step, how he’d given up those choices, one by one, for the sake of convenience. For the sake of his own selfish wants. It was comfortable, to be the Chairman’s Champion, an obedient cog in the monstrous machinery that was Macro Cosmos. After all, the Chairman knew best. After all, the Chairman was so kind, so willing to work with Leon and everything Leon wanted.
God, he’d been so stupid.
The audience hadn’t been mad. Not as he’d feared, of course. There was no pelting of rotten food, no spitting and hissing and hands reaching out to tear him apart, limb by limb. Just a quiet expectation that erupted in a cheer, when Gloria struck a pose and Leon was left with no choice but do the same. There had been cheers and a new champion – not like him, though, not anymore, never again, Leon was going to tear down that figure, one choking expectation at the time, now that he knew it for what it was – and a blind trust in him, to show Galar what was to come.
Raihan had invited him to his Big Losers Party, again, and instead Leon had spent the night throwing up in his suite at the Rose, heaving out every bit of panic he’d swallowed down while the cameras were rolling. Around midnight, he’d walked out of the hotel, out into the chilly spring air, and wondered if there was a train running that he could catch, but of course, Carl was there, Corviknight and all, ready to ferry him home one last time.
Then he’d been home, clinging to his parents, and falling asleep in a bed he hadn’t laid on in years.
It was quarter past six now, as he stood in the kitchen and awkwardly rummaged about, trying to find a mug to serve himself some tea and trying not to crumble inside out at the realization he couldn’t quite remember where such things were kept. He should probably go back to bed, really, but old habits died hard. He woke up at five o’clock, every day, no matter where he was or what he’d done the night before, and he was ready by seven. Before, that was the time when Oleana would call him and give him his itemized schedule for the day: his first meeting would start at seven fifteen, eight if he had to travel out of whatever town he was staying, and his last one would end somewhere around nine, with plenty enough time for Carl to ferry him over to his new hotel, get dinner and fall into exhausted sleep sometime before midnight. Day in, day out. His clothes had been prepared for him, his meals scheduled and pre-selected, his keynotes written for him… All he had to do was play his part. All he had to do was smile at every eye and camera around him – they were always watching, Rose told him, over and over again, in the gentle voice of a mentor, encouraging Leon to be consciously aware of himself at all times, ready to avoid causing a PR mishap by any means – and follow the script and then everything flowed neatly, falling into place as per the Chairman’s designs.
It was more than a year now, that the Chairman was gone, and Leon was left to deal with all the ways things didn’t just… flow anymore. He had to deal with the people that had been stepped on and shoved aside and for whom trusting the Chairman hadn’t been a choice. It had been ugly, in an exhausting way, but he’d realized, as they turned to him for help and guidance and some kind of answer, that if he didn’t do it, no one else would. He wasn’t bitter, he could still see the things the Chairman had promised that were worth preserving. It was messy and complicated, and he realized that not everything was bad. Not everything was terrible. Everyone was so angry, about Rose, and Leon understood why, but there was good there, among the bad. There were things worth preserving and protecting, that people were entirely too willing to throw out just for their association with the Chairman. He’d stood there, those first days, and realized the implications of Galar deciding to reject Macro Cosmos and everything associated with it. The people who’d lose their jobs, the hospitals and towns that would lose power, the million tiny things he’d spent fifteen years advertising and helping weave into what Galar understood to be part of normalcy. That’s why he’d stayed, when the board came to him. That’s why he’d agreed to lend his name and his face and his fame, to protect Galar from imploding right under his nose.
But he couldn’t just stand there and not do something, be better, if he had the chance to change things. And of course, it turned out being Champion had been a good training school to become Chairman, with the crazy schedule and the endless meetings and the winning smiles and the good PR everywhere.
He was so, so tired, now, and so afraid it was all going to collapse under its own weight, and then who’d be to blame? Rose was locked up, hidden from view, unable to shoulder anymore blame. If it all failed, now, it would be Leon’s fault. It’d be his doing, if things didn’t work out, because he was too weak and too selfish and too easily convinced, to step away.
After all, Gloria had a right to want a life of her own, and Leon respected that. But he’d already given up sixteen years of his own, to the League, to Macro Cosmos. Did he really have a right to walk away? Wasn’t he just dooming someone else to take his place? He’d tried so hard to make himself obsolete, to split his workload and put in and endless list of failsafes to prevent another Rose from happening. And to prevent another one of him, as well. And it felt so selfish, deep down, to not want anyone to live the way he had so far. It felt whiny and weak and terrible, this immeasurable leap between realizing he felt sick at even contemplating forcing his own lived life on someone else, and accepting he didn’t want it anymore. It wasn’t so bad, he kept trying to argue, with himself, with the endless echo chamber in the back of his head, Rose and Oleana and the board and Gloria and his parents. It hadn’t been all bad. There had been good times, too. There had been moments of genuine joy and delight, and he didn’t know how to reconcile those with the visceral certainty that if he didn’t tear his post apart and rework the system itself until it was impossible for anyone to be stuck the same way he’d been, he’d failed at his job.
At the same time, it seemed so insurmountable a task, that there was no way he could have possibly succeeded already, and the anxiety over failure kept bubbling up in the back of his throat, threatening to make him hurl again.
“Leon.”
Leon startled at the sound of his own name and nearly dropped the mug clutched tightly in his hands, looking up to find his mum standing by the doorway, soft smile and gentle eyes, and he was ten again, sneaking downstairs for one last snack before going to bed.
“Morning, mum,” he said, placing the mug on the counter, lest he ended up dropping it. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
Her smile brightened significantly as she shook her head.
“Not at all!” She said, and then leaned in, conspiratorially. “It’s bath day, after all.”
“Bath day?” Leon asked, blinking, and then stepped back when she entered the kitchen proper.
“Yep,” she said, and winked. “Why don’t you help me with breakfast?” She paused, head tilted to the side. “For old time’s sake?”
Leon found himself beaming at the idea, and falling into step with surprising ease. He was eight again, coming downstairs, two steps at the time, endless energy demanding to be spent, and helping out with the eagerness of someone who wanted nothing more but to do something. They made pancakes, sharing space in the kitchen, and chatting idly about nothing, which Leon appreciated the kindness of, considering the many things they could be chatting about – the future, the announcement, the many, many things that Leon got hives thinking about honestly – and instead played around sprinkling chocolate chips and strips of bacon into the pancake stacks they were making. It was fun and nice and another solid reminder that it was going to be okay, all of it, even if sometimes Leon caught himself worrying about it.
It was fine.
Then he realized his mum was guiding him outside, where his dad had just setup a table, and that they’d actually made enough pancakes to feed a small village.
“It’s bath day, son,” his dad said, eyebrows arched mischievously as he took the plates from Leon’s hands and gestured him to take a seat. “Breakfast and a show around here.”
“Morning, morning!” Gloria’s mum said, letting herself into their yard with a sleepy yet very pleased smile on her face. “As promised, I brought the honey,” she added, taking a seat next to Leon’s mum and placing a dozen little jars onto the table. “Oh, hi Leon.”
“Good morning, ma’am,” Leon said, because he was utterly lost, but that was no reason to be rude. “What’s,” he began, and then trailed off as he saw a hydro pump shoot off into the sky, somewhere behind her house. “Oh.”
Postwick was a minuscule town. It had been small, when Leon had become Champion, the first time, but now it seemed even smaller, with Wedgehurst having grown so much over the years. He remembered the inauguration of the new train station had been one of the first events he’d attended as Champion, but it was hard to remember it not being there since forever. In a weirdly selfish way, Leon was glad the station hadn’t been built in Postwick proper – it made no sense, really, considering Postwick was, strictly speaking, seven farms and about as many families – because at least then, Postwick was allowed to remain as tranquil and small as Leon remembered it. It was no exaggeration to say the entire town fit in one table, as indeed, Leon watched a bit awkwardly as the neighbors started filing in, relaxed and cheerful, carrying their own offerings to add to the table. Across the river, in the vast fields that surrounded Gloria’s house, they could see two very big legendary dogs try to squirm their way away from a legendary bath they were apparently going to get.
It took Leon entirely too long to realize that Eternatus, the enormous, dangerous, vicious dragon of doom, poison and not insignificant amount of hate that had delivered him his first true defeat in life, was perched along the hill, sprawled out and immobile, watching the commotion through its weird, crystalized eyes and seemingly content to just… be, while Hop and Gloria laughed and screamed, trying to corner down the fussy pokemon.
The table cheered every success, but conversation also spread about, as Leon found himself sitting between his parents and answering polite inquiries about his time outside the village, how long he planned to stay, and nothing particularly important. Leon was struck by how nice it was, to not be the automatic center of attention, and dug into his breakfast with a small smile, as he contemplated the thought.
Eventually, long after the food had mostly been depleted and everyone had moved to chatting about the truly important things, like weather and harvest yields, Gloria and Hop approached them, soaking wet and deliriously cheerful, followed by two very indignant legendary dogs that laid down along the stone fence and refused to acknowledge the applause they were received with as they settled in to dry out in the sun.
“That was quite a battle,” Leon said, watching them take a seat across from him with a bright smile. “Very exciting!”
“Very wet, you mean,” Hop laughed, rubbing his face with his hands and then reaching out to serve himself from the leftovers. “Turns out there’s a lot of things people don’t think about, when they hear you caught a legendary pokemon!”
“Like the bathing,” Gloria snorted, and then tore out a piece of pancake and fed it to the Sobble that still remained comfortably perched on her shoulders, as always, “sun or otherwise.”
And then, somewhere in the back of his head, the date clicked into place and he resisted the urge to burst out laughing.
“The unmovable monthly appointment, I take it?” Leon asked, head tilted to the side as he remembered the literal juggling that he’d indulged in to accommodate Gloria’s request – demand, really – to be absent certain days.
“Yup,” Gloria chirped, spreading honey on her pancakes. “Told ya,” she added, tearing off a bit of pancake and offering it to her Sobble, pointedly not looking at him, “one of us gotta have her priorities figured out.”
“Ouch,” Leon laughed, wincing dramatically. “Critical hit there, huh.”
Gloria shrugged indolently.
“Merciless, really.”
Being home reminded him, oddly enough, of the half week he spent crashing Raihan’s guest room: he knew objectively this would be fundamentally different from his usual hotel stay, but the fact it was so foreign to him was disconcerting.
He knew hotels, was the thing. He knew the layouts of the different chains – always the same chains, all affiliated with Macro Cosmos, all instructed precisely on what to put in his rooms and where – for rooms and floors and amenities. He knew the hotels that had pools and the ones that had weight rooms and the ones where it was best if he limited his morning exercise to a treadmill run. He knew the routine, so profoundly ingrained in him that he still woke up at five every morning, even though he had nothing at all to do, and so he stayed in bed until six, when he heard his parents make their way downstairs, and then he figured it was okay for him to come down and offer to help – he loved helping, it was the only part of this new, strange reality without structured routines that made sense, helping his mum with breakfast and lunch and dinner and finding fulfillment in the simple pleasure of making something.
This was his home, this was the house he grew up in. The place he’d been promised he could always come back to. The place he yearned for the most, when he was tired or sick or just missing the sound of his parent’s voices. It should have been comforting, but it felt strange, instead. The same kind of strange Raihan’s home had been: the houses reflected their owners, and he knew those owners rather well, he thought, but not well enough to really understand their homes. Leon felt about his mum’s collection of jars and his dad’s fussing about his contest flowers in the backyard, about the same way he’d felt about the dragon window decals in Raihan’s home: they made perfect sense with what he knew about their owners but he felt weird that he apparently didn’t know them well enough to guess about their existence before they were introduced.
It reminded him of all the tiny things he didn’t really know, about the people he loved, and how all together they were not so little anymore.
It felt like failure, the sort Leon was not good at handling.
His dad left for the market every day after breakfast, not because he had to, really, but because he enjoyed the haggling and the bickering about prices with the same passion Leon loved battling, so mornings were spent with his mum, helping with dishes and chores and just chatting about nothing. Then it would be lunchtime, and Leon felt obligated to accompany her to Wedgehurst, just so he could carry her bags after she bought stuff to cook lunch and dinner. Afterwards, Leon sat in the backyard and spent the afternoon looking after his team, playing more than training for all he tried to make sure they were doing alright. By the time the sun was setting, he was back inside, offering to help some more – to feel useful, somehow, like he wasn’t just spending his entire days doing nothing at all – watching with endless fascination the myriad of things his mum could conjure into a plate without much fuss at all.
And it was fine, really. It was the kind of slow, peaceful life he’d have led, if he’d been defeated at some point during his Gym Challenge, or if his title had been claimed before now. It was a good life, he knew that, it just…
Well, it was boring.
His dad’s rounds in the market were pretty meaningless, Leon knew, because most Postwick farms were subcontracted to several Macro Cosmos subdivisions for the next three decades at least – he’d seen the contracts, among the million things that had crossed his inbox at some point, having read Postwick and been unable to stop digging until he made sure his hometown would be fine and not in danger of being exploited the same way Spikemuth had been, under Rose’s control – but he just liked chatting with his friends and talking about yields and soil quality in ways Leon honestly didn’t quite fully understand. His mum made food for three out of habit, and he couldn’t quite stop the wince every time he remembered he hadn’t been that third person in forever. Hop didn’t even officially live in the house anymore, splitting his time evenly between Sonia’s spare room in Wedgehurst, Professor Magnolia’s spare room in the lake house and apparently camping out with Gloria somewhere out in the wild area. Leon absolutely did not begrudge his brother his enthusiasm pursuing his new career, but he’d have liked to spend more time with him – any, really. Still, he tried to be supportive, just the way Hop had always been supportive of him, over the years.
He hated the thought, every time it crawled its way into his consciousness. It felt childish and unkind, and he hated feeling that way.
So he offered to help more, he tried harder. He’d wanted this, after all. He’d worked so hard for it, ever since he’d reached the conclusion that he was allowed to want it. He felt ungrateful, whenever he found himself bubbling inside out with restlessness, like there was something intrinsically wrong with him, that prevented him from finding the sort of peaceful happiness he saw in others.
He wasn’t really surprised that whenever his thoughts found themselves spiraling down into something unpleasant, his pokemon nudged him for it. They were his closest friends, after all, the ones who’d stayed with him no matter what.
“It’s okay,” Leon said, feeling Charizard’s nose bumping against the back of his neck, a grumbling little noise echoing inside her chest, as he scratched the underside of Haxorus jaw. “I promise.”
The resulting disapproving noises – honorable mentions to Aegislash and Dragapult, really, who seemed to have disapproval down to a science at that point – made Leon laugh.
“God, you’re always loud, aren’t you?”
Leon looked up in surprise, finding Piers leaning over the edge of the stone fence, arms folded over the smooth rock and expression wry.
“Piers!” Leon called out, brightening up immediately. He stood up, despite more disapproving noises from haxorus, and made his way over. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” Piers deadpanned, one eyebrow arched judgingly as Leon navigated his way to him. “Is that how you greet people who’ve come visit?”
“I’m sorry, I-“ Leon raised his hands placatingly, slightly flustered at his own rudeness, but was cut off by the fact Piers laughed.
“Relax, Princess,” he said, lips twitching into a smirk. “I’m just fucking with you.”
“Well, that’s mean,” Leon pointed out, though he found himself wanting to smirk back at him regardless.
“Water’s wet too,” Piers retorted, and then shrugged. “Marnie asked me to tag along. Y’know. Moral support and all that.”
Leon didn’t, truth be told, know anything about that, but he reckoned this was one of those moments where the best he could do was nod along.
“So how are you liking it?” Leon said, after a pause, feeling awkward in the silence and slightly unnerved by the slightly disinterested look Piers was giving him. “Here in Postwick, I mean.”
“It’s alright, I suppose,” Piers said, shrugging, “looks like a freakin’ movie set, your town. Just, not my kind of movie.” He shifted against the fence and dug out a pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his pants. “Provincial, and all. You want?”
Leon shrugged uncomfortably, caught between the urge to defend his hometown and the bubbling urge to agree. He waved away the cigarette when Piers offered and moved to lean on the fence to the side, so as to not get a faceful of smoke every time Piers exhaled.
“It’s nice and quiet,” Leon said, somewhat lamely. “Some people like nice and quiet.”
“Fair enough, I guess,” Piers replied, somewhat unconvinced, “I’m surprised you’re one of those. Never would have peg you for the type, not the way you bombast everywhere you go.”
“Bombast is not a verb,” Leon muttered, pointedly looking away.
“Everything’s a verb if you try hard enough,” Piers snorted, blowing out rings of smoke out above their heads.
“…I almost want to argue that,” Leon admitted, tugging at his hat to make sure it was sitting properly atop his head, “but I’m also a big fan of your music, so I realize I don’t really have a leg to stand on.”
Piers squinted suspiciously at him.
“Is that a jab about my height?”
Leon barked a laugh and then tugged down his hat to hide his face, trying to swallow the unbecoming cackle.
“No!” He winced and risked a look at the unamused face Piers was making at him. “Maybe retroactively, a little.”
“Dick,” Piers deadpanned. “You’re not that tall.”
“I mean, I think you’re biased,” Leon pointed out, one eyebrow arched tauntingly, “you dating Raihan and all.”
Piers inhaled so sharply he almost swallowed the cigarette whole, and then spat it out with a loud, hurling noise.
“Piers!” Leon reached out to grab him, when it seemed like Piers was about to fall over the fence in surprise. “Are you alright?”
“Am I—are you high?” Piers demanded, shoving his hair off his face to give Leon a proper scowl.
“No?” Leon replied, somewhat unsure given the eminently offended look Piers was giving him.
“I’m not,” Piers snapped, shuffling back to his feet and tossing his hair back in the sort of dramatic fashion that Leon had never been able to replicate, no matter how long his own hair got. “Dating Raihan,” Piers added, looking supremely put out. “That’d be stupid.”
“Oh,” Leon said, not sure what else to reply, though he found himself fighting the urge to bristle up in Raihan’s defense.
Piers didn’t have to look so disgusted by the idea, after all. Raihan was a great guy, as far as Leon was concerned: he was kind and funny and passionate and rather good looking, if one went by the screaming commentary on every selfie he’d ever posted. Anyone would be lucky to be dating Raihan, really.
Not that Leon would know, per se, since he didn’t want to date his best friend – that’d be weird, wouldn’t it? – but Piers didn’t have to make it sound like it would be such a terrible burden to bear.
“I’m sorry,” Leon said, feeling keenly awkward again and not sure what to do about it. “I thought-“
“He’s a friend,” Piers replied shortly, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Barely.” He gave Leon a considering look, and then rolled his eyes with a sigh. “He’s single, Leon. He’s been single for years now.”
“Oh,” Leon replied, fingers anxiously twitching with the urge to hold something, “I see,” he added, even though he super didn’t.
Piers was giving him a frankly scary look, like he was pissed enough to be contemplating violence, even though Leon wasn’t sure why he’d feel that way. It’d been an honest mistake, really! Raihan had pictures of Piers in his house. He’d said they were close. And Raihan had never mentioned being close to… well, anyone, before.
And besides, again, dating Raihan wouldn’t be that terrible. It wouldn’t be at all terrible, in fact! Raihan was amazing and anyone who dated him would feel lucky about it. It was kind of rude of Piers to be so dramatic about how much he didn’t want to date him.
“Piers,” Gloria called out from the road, approaching with Marnie, holding hands. “We’re going to Wedgehurst,” she said, once she was close enough, soft, pleasant smile on her face. She looked at Leon and waved with her free hand. “Hi, Leon!”
“All good?” Piers asked, looking at Marnie with an arched eyebrow.
Marnie shrugged, but said nothing.
Piers snorted.
“Have fun then,” he said, waving them off with a vague shooing motion.
Leon had the distinct feeling he’d just missed something important in the exchange, but reckoned it was none of his business. And hey, the interruption at least saved him the embarrassment of saying something stupid about how annoyed he was getting at Piers, for dissing Raihan.
“They’re really good friends, aren’t they?” Leon said after a moment, as they watched both girls walk down route 1 towards the town.
Piers gave him a side look, seemed to consider something for a second, and then snorted very loudly.
“They’re lesbians, Leon.” He smirked at the surprised, choked noise Leon made in reply, clearly amused by his reaction. “So I guess that’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Piers,” Leon said, wrinkling his nose at him, “but you might be a bit of a compulsive ass.”
“Oh?” Piers tilted his head to the side, “is that how you really feel, Princess?”
Leon snorted.
“Pretty strongly right now, yes,” he retorted, one eyebrow arched. “I’m trying to be nice.”
“I know,” Piers snickered pretty mean-spiritedly, “but only Raihan really thinks that’s cute.” Then, before Leon could properly process the implications of that statement, Piers jumped over the fence rather dramatically, even though the door was just a few feet away from where he was standing. “C’mon, I know you’re still prissy ‘cause Obstagoon beat your ass last time. I’m feeling pretty magnanimous today, I suppose I can let you try and get your revenge.”
“You won fair and square, Piers,” Leon pointed out, in the best lecturing tone he’d developed trying to guide Gloria through the trials of being Champion, “revenge would imply I resent you for it, and I very much do not. However, dethroned Champion or not…” Leon raised a hand, however, and twitched his wrist in a commanding gesture, lips pulling into a smirk as Aegislash leaped above his head, switching stances as it landed before him with his blade unfurled and ready to fight. “I’ve never been one to say no to a challenge.”
“You just gotta be the fucking most, huh,” Piers retorted, eyes gleaming as he threw out a duskball and his Obstagoon, predictably, came out. “But then I guess I really don’t have much room to judge…”
“So how was your day?”
Leon looked up from where he’d been polishing aegislash’s shield with his favorite oil and blinked up at his phone, where Raihan’s voice was coming through, nice and soothing and kind, as always. Leon thought about the fight with Piers and the surprising string of stupid things he’d said, over the course of a single conversation, and yet the weird certainty he got, at the end of the battle – victory, three to one, because obstagoon knew shadow claw for some dumb stupid reason and Leon had been off his game until he saw aegislash drop like a sack of bricks, but then haxorus had done short work of obstagoon, malamar and toxtricity – that Piers actually liked him, for all he continued to be rude and mocking and all around kind of a dick about everything.
“I think I made a new friend today,” Leon replied, and then chuckled when Aegislash made a whiny chirr because he’d stopped polishing. “So all in all, I’d say it was good! And you?”
“Pretty good myself!” Raihan replied, sounding… well, as nice as he always did. “I’ve got new babies.”
“Oooh, do tell! That’s exciting!” Leon smiled brightly at his phone, and wondered how long until Raihan felt comfortable posting pictures with his new hatchlings on his social media.
“Two Jangmo-os and an Axew,” Raihan replied, all but purring with pride. “They’re cranky and bitey and perfectly adorable. I’m going to break the internet when they’re ready for primetime.”
Leon could hear the smile on his voice, and wondered all of a sudden if it would be weird to ask Raihan to move to video chat, when he realized he missed seeing his friend smile. Raihan’s smiles were always infectious, as far as Leon was concerned. Talking with Raihan had always been a treat, while he’d been Champion, forever stuck in an unforgiving schedule and cornered by the Chairman’s disappointed stare whenever Leon wasn’t immediately on board with whatever new obligation he’d acquired when he wasn’t looking. It felt like a terrible indulgence, how often he called Raihan now, and Raihan was too kind because he never hung up on him – except that one time, when Leon had called at a bad moment because he was an idiot and nearly gotten Raihan hurt because of it, but he was better about that now – and always seemed game to chat: about their days, about the news, about everything, really. Raihan always had something smart to say about pretty much anything Leon brought up, and listening to his voice was always a nice way for Leon to close his days.
“I don’t think the internet will recover,” Leon said, arms curled around Aegislash, cuddling and no longer polishing, as he looked up at the Rotom floating just above his head. “But I also don’t think they’ll mind too terribly. Your baby dragon pictures are always amazing. All your pictures are amazing.”
“Really?” Raihan asked, that teasing tilt to his voice that let Leon know he was feeling playful. “I thought it was my Rotom’s doing, no input from me.”
“Well,” Leon retorted, mock-innocent, “you do provide the subject matter. I can give you credit for that.”
“This consistent denial of my uncontested photographic talent is rude and uncalled for,” Raihan snorted, and Leon could picture the exact way he was pouting, lips pinched together and pulled to the side, to best show his displeasure. “I find it telling you still haven’t opened a ‘gram account. Are you afraid your follower count will always be inferior to your rival’s, Leon? You ain’t champ in this field, you know?”
Leon knew that was a joke and he was meant to laugh and joke back; they’d only been ribbing each other like that for years now – years and years of clinging to Raihan’s words, few and far in between, because he was witty and smart and he made Leon want to be better, always, but he was always told he had better, more pressing things to do, than fill up his time with Raihan’s chatter – Leon knew the beats of that song. He knew. He missed it anyway, the way he kept doing, more often than not, now that he was owner of his own schedule and selfishly willing to soak up any and all time Raihan was willing to give.
“I don’t know if anyone would care,” Leon confessed, fingering the tuffs of hair curled behind his ear, “if I made an account or not. I mean, I never… none of the official champion accounts were really mine, they were handled by the PR people, and I’m not champion anymore. I’m not… I did open one! When I got Rotom, I had to set one up, but I’ve never used it. I just. I don’t know if there’s a point to it.”
“To me, the point is that you can’t pretend something didn’t happen, once it’s out on the internet,” Raihan said, and he sounded so kind, forever patient with Leon’s eternally dumb rambles about things that sounded stupid to him even before he said them, but he still said anyway. “Once you publish something, you gotta live with it, forever!”
“That’s terrifying,” Leon whispered, well aware of the walls of vicious comments that always followed Raihan’s selfies after one of their matches.
People always wanted someone to fail, because they always wanted someone to win. That was just what the audience was, by its nature.
“I mean, it can be,” Raihan admitted, but he laughed it up, and Leon basked in the sound perhaps a bit too much. “But it’s also really comforting. It depends on what you post. If you post about defeat and bad things happening, yeah, the internet will never let you forget.” Raihan paused, and then his voice softened. “But you can also post good things. Post about delicious food you ate, or a nice sunrise, or a cute display on a store, or hell, yourself, when you’re having a good day! Sometimes your hair plays nice and you picked up a cool outfit or the lighting is really good, and you look nice. The internet remembers that too, and it doesn’t let you forget it, even when you’re having a bad day. That’s comforting too.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way,” Leon said, licking his lips. “I’ll give it a shot.”
“You don’t have to,” Raihan said, almost apologetic, “but if you do, tag me. I’d like to follow you. See what you’d like to be reminded of.”
“Sure,” Leon replied, some nameless feeling stuck somewhere in the back of his throat.
And then, because he was an idiot, he spent the rest of the evening after hanging up, combing through his gallery for photos to upload.
Raihan liked every single one.
Hop’s birthday was a village-wide holiday.
To be fair, Postwick was so small that everyone’s birthday was treated the same way, but Leon had been away from home so long he’d never gotten to participate in any but his own – and his own birthday had always been an event, when he was champion, whether he wanted it to be or not, particularly the years he’d not been allowed to go home to celebrate. He helped with the food – he loved being in the kitchen, really, chatting idly with his mum about spices and recipes and the TV chefs she liked, and then feeling that warm glow of satisfaction watching people eat and enjoy what he’d made – and some of the decorations, and found himself struck by how much older Hop looked when he arrived, wearing glasses and a lab coat.
“Look at you,” Leon said, drying his hands with a towel as Hop tried to shrug off the compliment. “All grown up and figured out.”
The hug took Leon by surprise, but he basked in it, regardless.
Despite his support and his letters and his phone calls and all the myriad of ways he’d always proved himself Leon’s biggest fan over the years, it was only after Gloria inherited the title that Leon became so keenly aware of the distance between him and his brother, and the realization had been heartbreaking. Hop had been born the year Leon made champion, and so all he’d ever known of Leon was about his role as champion. Leon loved his brother, always had. Leon had loved him since the moment he’d learned he existed, watching him grow in the swell of his mother’s belly. Leon always thought kindest of his brother, picking up every single trinket he could find that he thought would make his baby brother smile and sending them home, over and over until it became a weekly errand for Carl: flying back to Postwick and deliver Leon’s best wishes for his brother.
But they’d never grown close, physically, and Leon realized, working with Gloria – and Hop, because it seemed, that lifetime ago, when Gloria had just been crowned, that wherever she went, Hop would follow – that the distance was painful. Gloria and Hop held hands and hugged and teased each other all the time. They were friends and they were rivals but above all, they were close. Leon wanted that closeness with his brother, but whenever he approached, Hop would get nervous and awkward and act like he was meeting a celebrity, instead of family. He’d been devastated by the realization of yet another thing forever sacrificed to the altar of The Champion, but it turned out all that was needed was time.
And they spent a lot of time together, during Gloria’s days as Champion. They got to eat together and visit places and chat about nothing, and it turned out that Hop melted whenever Leon found trinkets for him and gave them to him in person.
His relationship with his brother was not, matter of fact, the sort of thing Leon had always envisioned, with only ad campaigns and movies as reference: Hop wasn’t perpetually sweet and small and angelic, and he wasn’t snippy and rebellious and mean. Hop was… Hop. He was upbeat and fundamentally hopeful about the future. He liked pranks so long as no one got hurt and he enjoyed eating sweets more than vegetables. And they’d built their own language, bit by bit, as they grew to know each other better, feeling out the boundaries of their relationship and finding the places it felt best. Mostly, they talked about Leon’s old battles – Hop remembered them all, in detail, with the fervor of a true fan, and embarrassingly, often better than Leon himself did – and Hop’s budding research interests. Leon was very happy to hear that Hop had found his way, in his newfound career as Sonia’s assistant. He looked happy and proud of his achievements and despite Leon feeling like they weren’t spending nearly enough time together, since he’d moved back home, Hop was always texting him tiny bits of his research that he found fascinating. It reminded Leon of the way Sonia used to throw research at him, not expecting him to really contribute to her train of thought, but rather just because it helped to have someone willing to listen. So Leon told himself his own boredom was to blame for his feelings – he’d been having… a lot of feelings, since moving back home – and refused to say anything about how his brother chose to spend his time, because he knew better than to be an entitled brat about it.
“I think it’s going to work out,” Hop said, face buried into Leon’s chest, “being a researcher, it’s going to work out, Lee.”
“I’m sure it will,” Leon said, and beamed proudly when Hop pulled back, looking up at him. “But even if it doesn’t, you can change your mind and do something else. You can do whatever you want, Hop! All that matters is that you’re happy.”
There was a bit of wetness on Hop’s eyes, but he was smiling, and that was reassuring.
“Did I tell you?” He asked, even though Leon knew he couldn’t have, because they hadn’t spoken in a few days, “look what Gloria got me for my birthday.”
Leon watched him throw the pokeball, and together they stared as the light faded and a Wooloo landed on the tiled floor with a happy bleat. It was, however, a black Wooloo, and it looked up at Hop and bleated again, louder this time, full of cheerful pride.
“A shiny Wooloo,” Leon said, blinking in surprise, and then laughed when it seemed to puff up its wool in pride at being acknowledged.
“Gloria said she saw her trying to steal some of Nat’s lunch and figured I’d love her,” Hop explained, bending down to pet the wooloo that looked, on second thought, feisty enough to try and steal food from the dragon of poison and hate most often seen sprawled across the fields surrounding Gloria’s house. “And I do,” Hop added, petting her head, before he looked up at Leon seriously. “Love her. I do.”
Leon held his stare, and felt it click as Hop’s eyes filled up with tears, his lips trembling to hold the words in.
“Oh, Hop,” Leon said, folding himself down on his knees to better pull him into his arms.
Leon couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound plaintive or mean, so he said nothing at all, and instead hugged his brother while he cried. Crying was good, at least, it meant he wasn’t bottling it up. Wooloo sat with them, as Hop sobbed his heartbreak into Leon’s arms, bumping her nose against Hop’s leg, hoping for attention.
Eventually, though Leon couldn’t hope to tell how long it’d been at all, Hop quieted down and they just sat there, on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, holding each other.
“I’m sorry,” Hop said, rubbing his nose with the back of a hand and carefully not looking at Leon in the eye. “I’m-“
“C’mon,” Leon interrupted, pushing himself back to his feet and offering Hop a hand, “I made meringues from all the egg whites that were left from the rice.” When Hop only stared, Leon winked at him. “Just don’t tell mum I gave you sweets before the main course. Deal?”
Hop rubbed his nose again, trying to hide a sniffle, and nodded.
“Deal.”
Leon pulled the plastic box out of the fridge, and motioned Hop to follow him upstairs, away from prying eyes or their mother’s reproach for ruining their appetite.
“Aww,” Hop said, coming to sit on Leon’s bed and peering into the box, “they look like Alcremies.”
“They really don’t,” Leon said somewhat sheepishly, well aware of the limits of his skill, “but they should taste alright. It’s Nan’s recipe.”
“Nan gave you her recipe?” Hop asked, surprised, considering their grandmother was wont to declare all her secrets would die with her, whenever someone asked for a recipe.
Hop’s new Wooloo, meanwhile, found her place on the big carpet at the center of the room and plopped down unceremoniously with a little cheerful bleat.
“…sorta,” Leon admitted, taking a bite out of the little mounds of meringue, “she made them for me, the other day. I was just… paying attention.”
For a moment, they sank into comfortable silence, chewing at their treats.
“Gloria is dating Marnie,” Hop said, twisting one of the meringues in his fingers, looking at it with a frown. “I feel… I feel like an ass, because I still want to tell her, even though I know she doesn’t feel that way. It’s stupid and selfish and it’s going to ruin our friendship.”
Leon tilted his head and thought back of all the times he’d seen Gloria look after Hop, the easy affection and the sincere joy in his company. He remembered, shortly after crowning her Champion, in one of the first official events, that Opal’s protégé, Bede, had tried to approach Hop and Gloria had cut in with a smile too sharp to be anything but a threat. She’d made a joke afterwards, when they were alone and Leon pointed it out, that Fairy types were helpless against Poison, and then refused to go in detail about why she felt the need to remind Bede of the fact.
Gloria cared enough about Hop to not hold back her punches, whenever they met each other in the field. And they still fought each other, even after all was said and done, because their rivalry was such a fundamental part of their friendship, that Leon sometimes wondered what it was like, before he came along and gave them Scorbunny and Sobble to carry it out.
“I don’t think being honest will ruin your friendship,” Leon said with a small shrug. “Sometimes you need to say things, just to be able to get over them. To get some closure. I don’t think she’ll hate you for it, if you tell her.”
“But what’s the point?” Hop insisted, looking away. “She’s not going to say yes.”
“No,” Leon agreed, “she’s not. But you’re not going to spend the rest of your life wondering if you should have asked her. And if you need a bit of space, to work through it, she’ll understand.” Leon took a deep breath. “She loves you, Hop. You know she does. Just… not like that.”
Hop ate his way through most of the sweets in the box after that, chewing in silence, so Leon did him the courtesy of not acknowledging the sniffling at all, and simply sat there with him, in what he hoped came across as support.
“Thanks, Lee,” Hop said after a moment, smiling faintly. “For… y’know. Everything.”
“Hey, I’m here for you,” Leon insisted, and then took of his hat and plopped it on Hop’s head, grinning. “Always.”
“I know,” Hop sighed, “I’ll think about it. Telling her, I mean. I’ll think about it. I just. It’s rough.”
“Yeah, but we’re tough, right?” Leon smiled, and reached a hand to pat Hop’s shoulder. “Dubwool tough.”
Hop choked on a laugh and reached back to shove at Leon playfully.
“Lee!” He whined, tugging on Leon’s hat to hide his face, “we were having a moment!”
“Yes,” Leon laughed, “and now we’re gonna go downstairs and have some lunch.”
In retrospect, it had been supremely stupid of him to storm off into the weald.
Leaving aside the fact he did genuinely get lost in a straight corridor if left to his own devices, people did legitimately get lost forever in the slumbering weald. That’s why it was off limits and fenced off from the rest of Postwick. Sure, it turned out to be the resting place of the legendary pokemon that defeated the Darkest Day, and coincidentally now in possession of his brother and his successor, but there were also other strong pokemon lurking about, and the mist didn’t help at all with how twisty and thick the woods were.
The last time Leon had come to the weald, he’d been following after the wayward heirs to the royal family, at the closing of their ridiculous charade to fight against Sonia’s discovery of Galar’s history, just because their egos were hurt. At least, Leon thought somewhat gloomily, he hadn’t had to navigate the route himself, since all he had to do was follow the stubborn duo to reach the monument at the heart of the woods. The time before that, Hop and Gloria had managed to get lost themselves and Leon had been too scared to think straight. All he’d known was that his brother was in danger and the panic had set in so fast he’d rushed into the fog without a care for his own safety. Thankfully, Charizard had been there to help, steady and reliable as ever.
She was there now, too, following him patiently even as he walked deeper and deeper into the fog, nervous energy making his hands twitch and his entire being vibrate with the urge to battle.
“I’m being stupid,” Leon said, turning around to look at Charizard in the eye, “aren’t I?”
Charizard looked at him with the slight tilt of her face that let him know she was dubious of his commands, but willing to follow them regardless.
“I don’t know when I started to run away from things,” Leon whispered, and reached out to grab her face in his hands, “I’m sorry.”
Charizard looked at him in the eye and then very deliberately reached out to bump her nose on his forehead. It made Leon laugh a little, and as he pulled his partner into his arms, he took a deep breath and commanded himself to relax.
It’d been just a dream, he knew that. But something about it lingered in his mind, almost like a nightmare. He’d gone out on a run to clear his head after waking up with bitter heartbreak stuck to the back of his throat, and he knew he’d taken a wrong turn when he found himself standing before the gates into the weald. He should have turned back, but he hadn’t. It just kept echoing in the back of his mind, not the words but the choking helpless feeling of the dream, even as it slowly melted away and he failed to grasp at the details. He couldn’t remember, now, what had been so upsetting in the first place, only the certainty he’d felt like his chest had caved in, upon waking up.
That, and the thought of Raihan, somehow tied into it all.
It hurt, Leon realized, to think of his rival, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He was still upset about Piers’ comments on Raihan and the sheer disgust in his voice at the mere idea of being something… more than friends with him. He’d beaten Piers and made friends with him, Leon thought, but the victory rang a little hollow when it came to defending Raihan. And the thing was, he knew Raihan didn’t need defending. Raihan was Raihan, and it was self-evident that Piers’ snide remarks were entirely baseless.
But he’d been thinking about it, ever since, and his conversations with Raihan had been slightly strained on his side, because the question – why are you single? – kept wanting to bubble up his throat. It was none of his business, of course, why Raihan didn’t have a partner, considering how easy it would be for him to have one. And the thought of it not being his business felt sort of upsetting too.
Leon knew, with the sort of cynical, jaded certainty that came after a year and change of running Macro Cosmos and cleaning up after Rose in all senses of the word, that his views on relationships were probably kind of fucked up. All of him was kind of fucked up, it was just part and parcel of being Champion under Rose’s rules. He’d unpacked a lot of it, looking after Gloria and trying to make sure she didn’t get anywhere near as fucked up as he was, but just because he knew he was a goddamn walking disaster didn’t mean he knew how to fix it.
He’d never allowed himself to think about relationships, was the thing, because he’d never been allowed one. Everyone else could date and hang out and it wasn’t a PR disaster when they did it, but Leon had always known he was strictly off limits to anyone, ever. He’d learned about sex in the negative spaces drawn by all the rules about things he wasn’t allowed to do or have done to him, with the Chairman’s disappointment weighting down every interaction he had that wasn’t strictly coded in his schedule. There’d been a year, when he’d been sixteen, that he’d grown crushes on nearly all his regular staff: Carl for being kind and tolerant and always willing to tell him a good joke, Oleana for being tall and beautiful and always in control, Tina for being chirpy and excited to work with him… hell, he’d been crushing on Rose and the cool, controlled way he handled himself pretty much always, self-assured and confident every step of the way.
Then he’d made the mistake of acting on one of those crushes, on one of his usual escorts. Leon didn’t even really remember his name, only that he’d thought he was handsome and funny, and that he didn’t feel patronized when he grabbed his hand and got him from his hotel room to the stadium or a restaurant or wherever Rose needed him to be. Leon had been sixteen and dumb and boiling over with so many feelings all the time it felt like his skin was going to peel off because he just couldn’t hold it all in. He’d gotten a kiss, for his efforts, short and sweet and playful, before getting shoved back into his room and told to get ready for the next day.
The next day his… well, he hadn’t even gotten to be a boyfriend, really. He was gone, though. Rose lectured him about it, about the importance of the brand and his vulnerability to be taken advantage of and how no one really wanted him, only his title and his money and his prestige. That he was trying to protect him, from getting used by people without scruples. That had been the only time Leon had cried, in front of Rose, and the only time Rose had ever touched him: patting his head and promising it would be alright, if only Leon obeyed. There had been no more escorts for him, after that, no specific people to stick around his orbit beyond Oleana, who didn’t care about anyone but the Chairman, and Carl, who was so besotted with his wife he was likely to shove the roll of pictures in his wallet to anyone who stood still long enough.
Leon learned the lesson, though, and learned it well.
They didn’t want him. No one did. No one could. So he closed himself up to that entirely, and focused on his job. He didn’t need relationships. He didn’t need any of the things always shoved in his face in movies and TV and the ads therein. So he stopped watching moves and TV and focusing only on ads that he had to participate in. It was fine! It wasn’t like he was missing something important, like food or water or sleep. People all over the world were single and none of them made a spectacle out of it. Some people, Leon theorized, just weren’t meant to be in relationships and he just happened to be one of them.
So why was he so upset about it, all of a sudden?
And he was upset, and it was about it. That much he knew. He was upset about the idea of Raihan being single and Piers dismissing him as a romantic partner. He was upset because Raihan was wonderful in every possible way and Leon still bristled at the idea that anyone would think otherwise. He was upset about Hop and his unrequited feelings, like his advice to his brother, though born of sincere good will, felt like it had been advice he should have been giving himself.
Because…
Well.
“Oh,” Leon said, burying his face into Charizard’s neck, “oh, I am an idiot.”
Leon spent the rest of the week after his sobering realization in the weald quietly hoping the ground would open up and swallow him whole.
He focused on making himself useful around the house – he continued to help his mum in the kitchen and even went with his dad to the auctions, and he helped his Nan to cleanup her library – and didn’t call Raihan at all, because now that he knew what he was doing, he felt terrible about it. He felt terrible about everything in general, to be fair, but he could focus on immediate things that needed fixing, so he did that. Besides, Raihan never called him, Leon realized with something like panicked trepidation, it was always him that reached out. It was always him that imposed himself on Raihan’s kindness and willing to tolerate him. He was the nuisance, and he couldn’t keep being one, now that he knew it.
On Thursday, he woke up to a reminder that it was Sonia’s birthday.
Usually, he sent her flowers. But that was before, when his schedule was a black pit constantly swallowing up every second of his day with commitments and important meetings. Now… now he didn’t really have anything important to do. No one was depending on him for anything, and no one was going to miss him, if he wasn’t there. So Leon kissed his mum’s forehead and went out, determined. He could call Carl and ask him to ferry him about, but it was a gorgeous day, the sun starting to stretch out in the horizon and the sky was open and clear, so Leon called Charizard out and rode on her back, right along the morning breeze.
The flight to Turffield was long but uneventful: it was almost ten by the time Leon landed on route 4, sliding off Charizard’s back with a sigh. She didn’t look in the least bit bothered by the effort, stretching with a yawn, arms and wings spread wide before she huffed expectantly at Leon. He smiled back at her and leaned in to press his face against hers affectionately.
“Let’s go find something nice for Sonia.”
Finding the flower market was a bit of a challenge, but Charizard was always game to fight Leon’s sense of direction and Leon had long learned to trust his partner when it came to that. What Leon hadn’t accounted for was the crowd gathering around him. He wasn’t Champion anymore, of course, and he certainly wasn’t dressed for the part – he hadn’t worn a cape in months now – but people still recognized him. Little kids still reached out to him and asked for autographs and pictures and to pet Charizard. Leon found himself falling back into the comfortable PR mode even though he was wearing track pants, a shirt for one of Piers’ concerts and a hat that absolutely didn’t match either.
It wasn’t until later, as he walked through the market stalls, looking for something good enough for Sonia, that he stumbled on the realization that Rose had been wrong about his audience and how fickle they were. He didn’t know why he was surprised, really, Rose had been wrong about so many things, and Leon had spent so long cleaning up after each and every single one of them, that he really needed to stop expecting Rose to be right at all.
Leon ended up buying her a pale-yellow orchid in a pot, rather than a bouquet. It reminded him of a Yamper’s coat and he knew just how much Sonia loved Yamper – enough she’d never evolved her own. The flight home was uneventful, though he was very focused on keeping the flower safe, cradling it against his chest and shielding it from the gale Charizard rode along the way. He landed on Wedgehurst, right outside the lab, and after thanking Charizard for her hard work, finally let her rest back in her ultraball.
However, it turned out Sonia was not home. Leon felt slightly stupid about not realizing that was probably going to be the case. He knew Professor Magnolia had left for a conference in Hoenn a few days prior, mostly because Hop had gone with her. He’d confided on Leon that the trip had been a good excuse to finally talk things out with Gloria and clear his head and Leon had hugged him tight and seen him off at the station with a smile. With her grandmother and her assistant gone, why would Sonia spend her birthday alone in the lab?
On the bright side, he had a phone.
“Hey, Sonia,” Leon said, once she picked up the call, “happy birthday!”
“Oh,” Sonia replied, voice slightly off, “thank you, Leon.”
“Listen, I got you something for your birthday,” Leon said, “I’m at the lab. Do you want me to drop it here or…?”
“I’m at the lake house,” Sonia said, and Leon realized she sounded upset. “I’ll… it’s okay, I’ll come pick it up tomorrow.”
“Are you okay?” Leon asked, head tilted slightly. “You sound-“
“I’m fine,” Sonia replied, but the sniffle was unmistakable. “I know you’re busy, it’s okay, Leon.”
“I’m not,” Leon said, a bit more forcefully than he meant, “busy, I mean. Do… do you want me to drop by?”
Sonia was quiet for a moment, and then she sighed.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, “I’ll be here.”
He could have taken Charizard out and have her flew him to the lake house, of course, but she’d already flown him all the way to Turffield and back, and she deserved her rest. And besides, route 2 was literally a straight line into the lake house.
He could deal with a straight line.
…yeah, he couldn’t.
He was halfway through the route – he thought he was halfway through the route – when it started raining, so calling out Charizard for help was right out. Leon huddled over the pot in his arms, trying to shield it from the pelting of water. It was dark out, by the time he crossed the bridge and reached the lake house, and by then he was soaked through and leaving a puddle where he stood.
Sonia opened the door when he knocked and took one look at him before she laughed. It wasn’t a mean-spirited laugh, though. More like resigned than anything else.
“Oh, Leon,” she said, and threw a towel at his head, “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I said I would,” Leon muttered, holding the orchid in one arm so he could use his free hand to rub the towel all over his face. “Route 2 is a lot twistier than I remembered.” He caught her looking up at him, dubious expression on her face, so he gave her a small smile and offered the pot. “Here you go. I saw it and thought of Yamper.”
“It’s lovely,” Sonia said, holding the pot and not looking at Leon in the eye. “Thank you.”
“Happy birthday, Sonia,” Leon insisted, towel thrown over his shoulders. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
Sonia looked up at him as he tried to pat himself dry with the towel, and then put the orchid down on the little cute table the professor kept by the doorway. Then she reached out and pulled Leon into a very tight hug, despite the fact he was soaked like a drowning skwovet.
The sniffle was unmistakable.
Leon took a deep breath and returned the hug just as tightly, because he knew sometimes one just needed that.
“Tell you what,” he said, pulling back slightly to look at Sonia in the eye, “let me take a shower so I don’t die of pneumonia, and I’ll cook dinner. We haven’t… really hang out in a while, now.”
Sonia smiled and reached a hand to poke his chest.
“Famous world champion knows how to cook?” She teased, head tilted to the side, “this, I got to see.”
“Ex-champion,” Leon pointed out gently, shrugging. “Ex-chairman, too.”
“What does that make you, then?” Sonia asked, one eyebrow arched almost as a taunt.
Leon snorted.
“So far? A decent cook.”
“It sucks,” Sonia said, sitting on the kitchen counter and nursing a glass of wine as she watched Leon rummage about to figure out their dinner, “but I know she didn’t stand me up on purpose. I just feel petty.”
“It’s your birthday,” Leon replied, trying – and failing – to not judge the Professor’s frankly abysmal spice cabinet. “I think you’re allowed to be petty on your birthday. No one likes being alone on a special day.”
“I’m not alone,” Sonia snorted, and made a toasting motion at him with her glass, “got my gallant ex-rival here, to save me from my pity party.”
Leon paused his mental grumbling about the lack of ginger anywhere in sight and turned to give Sonia a slightly surprised look.
“We really aren’t anymore, huh,” he said, head tilted to the side, “rivals, I mean.”
He knew they hadn’t been, for a while now. He’d been the champion and Sonia had just… gone home and focused on collecting fashion statements at about the same rate Leon had collected victories. She’d worked hard on her research and her book, but she didn’t talk about it as much as she did her love of fashion, which was why Leon had been surprised that she’d chosen to take over after her grandmother. Not because Sonia wasn’t capable – Sonia was lowkey the smartest person Leon knew and he had no problem acknowledging that – but because he’d never really thought of research as her passion. He’d always thought she’d end up being a designer, or something like that, considering how knowledgeable she was about fashion and clothes and branding.
It went to show what he knew, he supposed.
“Well, no,” Sonia replied, blinking, “but that’s not news.”
“I guess not,” Leon sighed, figuring that the onions could do extra work, so he better started chopping them. “I just… didn’t notice, when it happened. One day it just… was that way.”
“You were busy being champion and I was busy not knowing what to do with my life,” Sonia pointed out, swirling her glass with a shrug. “We figured it out eventually, so it’s fine.”
“I mean, you did,” Leon snorted, “I don’t really know what I’m gonna do next.”
“Cook us dinner, hopefully,” Sonia said, and then reached out to nudge Leon’s wine glass closer to him. “Get drunk with me. Y’know, sensible stuff.”
“Aww, you think I’m sensible,” Leon cooed at her, “it’s your birthday, and here you are, giving me all these new ways to disappoint you.”
“I’m drunk, Leon,” Sonia pointed out, “I get to say things I don’t mean.”
“Ouch.”
They fell into a comfortable silence after that: Leon started frying spices and onions into a pan, eyeballing measurements and making do with what he had at hand, to hopefully throw together something nice. Meanwhile, Sonia drank her way through her glass and watched him work with the same sort of curious look she gave anything she stumbled on that she didn’t immediately understand.
“I used to be very angry at you about it,” Sonia admitted, watching Leon’s hands rather than his face. “About the rival thing. It was easier being angry at you, than admitting I was angry at myself.”
“It’s a two-way street, though,” Leon said, giving the pan a good shake, “I wasn’t a very good rival for you, and that’s on me.”
“Maybe,” Sonia admitted, though she still sounded doubtful, “but I really didn’t care until you started making a fuss in public about what a great rival Raihan was. I didn’t care I wasn’t a good rival to you, either, I was just pissed that you replaced me.”
“Sonia, you’re my oldest, dearest friend,” Leon said, putting a lid on the pan and finally reaching out for that glass of wine that had been tempting him since the beginning of this conversation, but which he’d been afraid to grab until he was halfway sure dinner was not going to go up in flames, “I could never replace you.” He grinned. “Scars and childhood trauma just don’t work that way.”
“Oh, shut up,” Sonia snorted into her glass, “I didn’t traumatize you, you big crybaby.”
“Not for lack of trying, you didn’t,” Leon laughed and dodged when Sonia swung a leg at him half-heartedly. “I am sorry, though, that I made you feel that way. That was shitty of me.”
“It’s water under the bridge, Leon,” Sonia said, nudging his side with her foot. “Besides, I stopped being angry about it when I realized you weren’t actually dating Raihan.”
Leon blinked.
“You thought I was dating Raihan?”
Sonia rolled her eyes.
“Leon, half of Galar thinks you’re dating Raihan,” she deadpanned, and then snorted at the choked sound he made in the back of his throat. “The other half doesn’t only because they think you’re already married to the guy.”
Leon spluttered loudly and then swung back his wine glass in one gulp as Sonia laughed at him.
“I’m not dating Raihan,” Leon said hoarsely, after a long moment, staring at the distance.
“I know you’re not,” Sonia agreed, and nudged him again.
Leon pouted at her.
“I mean, I could be,” he added, fumbling with the bottle to refill his glass. “You don’t know.”
“Leon, you called me at three in the morning to let me know the first time he called you Lee,” Sonia said, clearly unimpressed. “If you were dating Raihan, I’d know.”
“…yeah, you’d be the first person I’d tell,” Leon admitted, burying his face in his hands. He rubbed his face and then turned back to the pan, which had steamed up the lid and looked… mostly okay. Probably. He took a deep breath. “I’m in love with him, though.”
Sonia froze, glass halfway to her mouth, and stared at him.
“Does he know?” She asked, and it was very telling, Leon thought, how unsurprised she was by the revelation, like the truly surprising thing was that Leon himself had realized it.
Which, to be fair, was probably the case.
“I don’t think so,” Leon said, offering her a wry smile. “You’re the first person I’ve told.” He shuddered dramatically and pulled out plates from the cabinet above the sink. “I’m going to have to tell him, aren’t I.”
Sonia smiled.
“I mean, if you actually want to be dating him, yes, that would be a great first step.”
“You don’t seem surprised,” Leon said, smiling back as he went about serving their plates.
“You’ve been in love with him at least a decade now,” she replied, sliding off the counter and following Leon over to the dining table, carrying their glasses and a mostly empty bottle of wine. “I’m glad you finally figured it out.”
“I haven’t been in love with him for a decade,” Leon argued, carrying their plates and heat on his face that had nothing to do with the wine he’d just chugged down all at once.
“Did you miss the bit where you called me at three in the morning to tell me he’d called you Lee?” Sonia asked, eyebrows arched in clear challenge that made Leon’s face feel, if possible, even warmer. “You were squealing like your teenage fans.”
“I was a teenager, at the time,” Leon muttered defensively. “…which I suppose is the point.” He carefully set the plates on the table and very pointedly did not look at Sonia in the eye. “I’m just… I’m pretty terrible at basically everything, aren’t I?”
“Oh, Leon, of course not,” Sonia said, patting his arm and nudging him until he looked at her, so she could smile at him. “You’re great at pokemon battles, and fairly decent cook.” She paused. “You’re just… a bit shit at everything else.”
Despite it all, Leon laughed at that, busying himself with refilling his glass while Sonia dug out a new bottle to replace the one that they’d just finished.
“I’m sorry I’m being a drama queen on your birthday,” Leon said, watching Sonia take a seat and appraise the plate he’d put before her. “We’re supposed to be celebrating!”
“You’re being a drama queen on my birthday so I don’t have to be,” Sonia pointed out, scooping out a forkful of food, “I think that makes you a good friend, Leon.” She paused, chewing thoughtfully as Leon leaned in unconsciously, waiting for her reaction. “Scratch that, you’re an excellent cook, just shit at anything that isn’t that or pokemon battles.”
“Cheers to that, I guess,” Leon laughed, toasting at her.
“Charizard still has nightmares, y’know?”
After dinner – and another bottle of wine – they stumbled their way over to the deck. The rain had stopped by then and the night chill was pleasant against the stifling heat of the wine. They sat on the bench overlooking the lake, watching the stars and reminiscing about old times.
“Mm?” Sonia looked up at him, blinking repeatedly.
“About your Milotic,” Leon said solemnly, and reached out to refill her glass.
Sonia snorted in a rather unladylike manner.
“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically. “It was just the one time!”
“It was the first time she’d ever been OHKO’d though,” Leon retorted sullenly, “and using surf on a charmeleon should be illegal, anyway.”
“Once a crybaby, always a crybaby,” Sonia said, nudging at his thigh with her knee. “Besides, you’re the one who challenged me to that battle, if I recall correctly. You wanted to see what she could do, after you helped me evolve her.”
“Surf on a Charmeleon, Sonia.”
“Oh, so we’re just gonna pretend you didn’t teach her solar beam just to get back at me for that?”
“It was a strategic decision to give my team better ground/water coverage,” Leon said, as serious as he could, “I resent the implication it was done out of spite.”
“Because it was,” Sonia deadpanned, and nudged him again, with her very pointy knees that just somehow always managed to poke him right in the fleshy bits that hurt most.
“…maybe a little.” He paused and then grinned at her. “The look on your face was pretty priceless, though!”
Sonia gave him a long look and then pointedly took a long sip of her wine. Leon laughed, warm from the food and the wine and the company. He leaned back on the bench and stared at the million stars in the sky – he was never going to get tired of it, of how clean the sky was here, how many stars he could see.
“Sonia?”
Leon swallowed hard.
“Mm.”
“Would you date me?” He asked, looking down at her with desperate hopefulness.
Sonia snorted dryly.
“No.”
Leon laughed when she wrinkled her nose, reminded, for some reason, of Piers’ dramatics at the idea of dating Raihan.
“Yeah, me neither,” Leon confessed, because it was the honest truth: who’d want him? He was a living, breathing disaster that couldn’t walk down a corridor without getting lost.
“I’m a lesbian, Leon,” Sonia deadpanned, one eyebrow arched, “it’s nothing personal.”
Leon smiled, but didn’t laugh again, only looked down at her with what he supposed was a rather pathetic expression on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I just… I keep wondering if Raihan would want to date me. And I can’t come up with a single reason why he would.”
“Oh, Arceus,” Sonia said, rolling her eyes and reaching down to refill her glass, “grant me strength.”
“I just really, really like him,” Leon whispered, chewing on his bottom lip. “So much it hurts to breathe sometimes.”
Sonia looked up at him and then reached a hand to caress his face. He almost expected her to flick her fingers on his forehead, the way she’d used to when they were children and he made the mistake of questioning her plans for the evening, which usually resulted in him getting grounded one way or another. Childhood trauma and all that. But instead she tugged him close, and he ended up lying on the bench with his head in her lap, his hat discarded on the floor and her fingers in his hair. Leon was very proud of the fact he didn’t lose his grip on his own wine glass, in that shuffle.
“I know,” Sonia said, her voice softer, kinder, the way it only got when no one was watching.
“Did it hurt this bad?” Leon asked, eyes half-lidded and fixed on the edge of the water softly lapping against the shore. “When you realized you liked Nessa?”
“A little bit, yeah,” Sonia said, twirling her fingers in his hair, “she was so pretty, Leon, I ached all the way to my bones when I looked at her.” She snorted and tugged a bit harder on his hair. “But then, I wasn’t repressing my feelings for ten years, you know? So I built up the nerve and told her, and it was okay! Because I might not be good at pokemon battles or cooking, but I’m good at other stuff.”
Leon laughed wetly and turned his head, pressing his face into her thighs.
“Ow.”
He didn’t remember what else they talked about, as they slowly finished that last wine bottle, but in the morning, he woke up lying on the bench, alone, with a blanket on his shoulders and the sun drilling itself relentlessly on his face. When he wandered back inside, he found Nessa in the kitchen, putting breakfast together and Sonia nursing her hangover into a cup of coffee. They offered him a place on their table, but he felt awkward interrupting. The mood from the night before was gone entirely, and he felt keenly like a third wheel standing there, so he said his goodbyes and rather than risk more disaster, called out Charizard and rode her back home.
Ten minutes later, he was walking into the house by the kitchen entrance and running into his mum, who took one good look at him and opened her mouth to ask.
Because he was clearly not done being stupid about things, and he was hungover and tired and his neck and his back were killing him for sleeping in that bench, Leon crossed the distance in three steps and clung to his mother like his life depended on it.
Crying, he reminded himself, at least meant he wasn’t bottling it up.
It wasn’t as comforting as he’d have liked.