A/N: Inspired by a roleplay I've been slowly working at with someone else, and the idea just wouldn't leave me alone. It's a bit disjointed, but I'm quite happy with it, and I think it captured the seat-of-pants mood I was aiming for. (In multiple ways.)

...Please, there's no such thing as too much porn.

The tournament began with a bang. It ended, too, with a bang.

Rosa's first battle with him in the champion bracket ended in utter disaster... for her, anyway. Her second battle, though played a little better on her part, ended the same way. The third and fourth both involved her inching so, so, so deliciously close to victory before having it narrowly snatched from in front of her face. Then, the fifth showdown against him had mirrored the first in being just as much of a washout as before. The sixth was yet to happen, but she'd learned not to underestimate even the littlest things about him anymore.

And yet, even through all the losses, there was some kind of weird, inexplicable appeal in losing repeatedly, and very publicly, to Red.

Moments like these were all she ever asked for in a battle. It was the most unique feeling, even more indescribable than if she'd actually won; crouched on one knee with her pokemon in front of her, sprawled at each other's sides in defeat. It wasn't the loss itself, but the gratification at the end, regardless of the outcome.

Red's pikachu bounded effortlessly onto his shoulder, still full of energy.

"...That was a great fight," Rosa breathed admiringly.

His lips curled up, and he said, "Yeah." Under the roar of the crowd, it was difficult to hear, difficult even to see his lips move under the brilliant stadium lights, but she managed to pick up the earmarked sentiment all the same.

It was silly. Red was always that terse, it wasn't anything new. At first, she teased him awkwardly, said she wasn't even sure he knew how to talk at all. But now, Rosa felt her heart skip a beat happily, and she had to turn away, look at something else — the crowd was clearly more interesting, because it took her a moment to find the ability to grin and nod at him, and another after that to remember to call back her pokemon.

As he left, he pulled at the neck of his jacket, breathed in deep, and adjusted his hat slightly with one hand. She followed after him.

At first, Rosa had taken note of how quickly he left the stadium after matches with some disappointment. She could always just about hear the echoes of his footsteps in the hallway, even though he was long gone. The first two times she'd lost to him, he'd merely tilted his hat with razor-edged precision and stepped out; she had tried to follow him, but he had simply vanished, melting away like a shadow. The best she could've hoped for was to snag him lurking about the lobby before the next tournament's start, probably at some unspeakable hour of the morning.

And she did, once, before what would become their third face-off.

Red stood in the doorway leading toward the stands, pausing with a part of his face cast in shadow. He let his gaze flick over Rosa lazily, like he was considering something, before disappearing within. She glanced around, ensuring no one was watching — only Alder was awake at this hour, sitting in one of the lounge chairs doing some replacement work on his necklace of poke balls, humming idly to himself. He would notice her leaving... but then, Rosa told herself, what didn't he notice? She waited a few moments, and then pushed herself to her feet to follow him down the dim corridor. The lights hadn't been turned on yet, so why in the world would he...?

"Good morning!" she tried cheerily. "Um, I hope we both make it to the finals today. I really want to battle you again! This time, I'll do way better!"

Red looked like he was all set to ignore her, but then his footsteps stopped, and he turned to glance over his shoulder. He nodded, making a sound in his throat that sounded somewhat like a facsimile of agreement.

"So, uh..." Suddenly, Rosa was a little uncomfortable. She couldn't begin to guess if that noise was a sarcastic answer, a pissed-off answer, or a genuinely good-humored answer. Red stared straight towards the wall to their side with that cold, faintly sardonic expression on his face, before he turned the rest of his body, let his hands slacken a little at his sides, and let his eyes bore right into Rosa.

She swallowed, and it sounded loud and ungraceful in her ears.

"Driftveil has such a nice venue, doesn't it? It's so different when no crowds are around... It's ghostly."

Nice save, you total idiot.

"It's like even security's still sleeping," she continued on with a nervous laugh. "I'm surprised you wake up so early, yourself! I mean, we're like the same age, or almost the same age, and we're both up at this hour..."

He nudged the brim of his hat up, and she took into account the predatory lid of his eyes. Or it looked that way. Maybe that was just how he always looked?

"Sorry, I'm kind of babbling, aren't I? I guess I just wanted to say hello, and wish us both luck today. I meant it when I said I really hope we get to, uh—"

Rosa was given reason to pause when she noticed Red had started meandering closer to her, one slow step at a time. The fact she'd stopped breathing had a lot to do with it.

"Relax," he answered at last, calmly halting a good few feet away from her.

"Oh... sorry," she said, "I'm just. Nervous. You know. Because you're really cool! But, um, not really because you're that Red or anything. I mean, I kinda understand how that is, too..."

Because I'm a movie star and a public idol, and people do it to me all the time when I step into the right parts of Unova, and on really bad days I wish I could just erase myself from public memory or something, but that would be terrible, too, and—

"I know," Red said quietly, in a tone that indicated it didn't matter to him one way or the other. Or that something didn't matter to him, but Rosa couldn't pinpoint just what that indifference was directed at.

"Sorry, I just... you're in a whole different league, in a lot of ways. It's really interesting to me, because I've never met anyone like you. Maybe I'm taking a risk here, but I'd like to know more about you, outside of the Red that I've been battling. After all, that's just one side of you, right?"

This time, he gave no perceptible answer, so she tried again, taking another step to close the distance. Maybe, a small part of her considered, that's why he'd stopped such a fair distance, because he was waiting for her to bridge the gap halfway too.

"Well... I guess I don't even really know you in a battle either. Eheh. But this time, I'm going to try really hard to stay in the game longer, so you better make it to the finals! I'll make sure to wait there for you, and I promise I'll do better this time! It wouldn't be fair otherwise!" Rosa turned to leave, gracing him with a smile as she did.

Without warning, Red reached out and seized her nearest arm, and she swore she could feel those little pebbly bones in her wrist grinding together in protest. His knuckles were white with the effort, and what she could see of his wine-colored eyes, beneath the shadow of his cap, were hiding something behind his cool intensity.

What a hell of a morning this was turning out to be. It was just getting stranger and stranger... and definitely more imminent, whatever it was.

She blew out a breath she didn't even realize she'd been holding. For once in her life, Rosa and words had parted company, and she wasn't sure how to kick start them again.

The vicegrip on her wrist loosened in mere seconds, and a sliver of — realization? acknowledgment? — crossed his face ever-so-slightly.

"I..."

Red stepped even closer; he made no move to withdraw his hand, now that the touch was feather-light and not bruising. Rosa made no move to reclaim her wrist, either. He draped his free hand over her shoulder, working it towards the back of her neck as he guided her one step back, then another, and another, until her back was pressed against the wall. A shiver skated through her when a thin strip of skin at her back met the cold surface, and yet felt his breath ghosting across her feverish face.

If she tried to escape, she'd be meeting his lips instead. If she twitched, or breathed, or did much of anything, he might even disappear, so she didn't. Rosa realized, through the pounding of her own heart and the feel of another heart so close to hers, that she didn't really want him to disappear, anyway.

"Come back," he breathed slowly, staring into her eyes like it was a completely natural thing to do, "after the battle."

Finally, he relinquished her, backing up and turning sideways to her casually like nothing had happened. Rosa gawked at him.

"What if I don't win?" she asked frantically, "What if I do win? What if—"

"Just come back," Red replied after a beat, and moved stealthily out of the hallway.

Mind completely blank, Rosa reached up and straightened her visor, which had been knocked faintly askew by him. She had no words, no thoughts, and absolutely no idea what she was supposed to be doing now. She took it as her cue to leave when a security guard marched up to her and asked if she was okay ("you look a little flushed, are you sick?"), then told her the seating area wasn't open yet and shooed her out.

Rosa soon caught onto the method to Red's madness.

They had their match, as promised. She did surprisingly well this time, although she still found herself served with another loss in the end; her team lasted much longer, and the match had been much more even than any attempts before. For that much, she was happy, even though she felt her mind entirely elsewhere throughout all the prior rounds leading up to the finals; so much so that she almost lost against Cynthia because she hadn't been predicting her moves properly.

This time, as the tournament finished, something slowed Red's steps as he stepped down from the stage. A pull at his jacket, a breath of fresh air, and an adjustment of his hat.

It was an invitation.

Rosa's feet carried her forward back into the hallway where the stands were emptying out, people spilling thickly into the narrow hall and pushing at each other to reach the exit. It was so crowded that no one seemed to notice either of them there, in a hurry to get out as everyone seemed to be. Red's hand closed around her wrist again and pulled her back in, fighting the crowds to get there.

They retreated to the space underneath the seats. When she asked, there was an eager tint to her voice, like she already knew the answer and everything that would follow. "Won't we get in trouble?"

"Probably." Red had her pushed against the wall by now, gaze much clearer than she'd ever seen it, despite the dim lighting. As clearly as if he'd said it out loud, she heard him think, Are you afraid of getting in trouble, Rosa?

He nudged her back, again and again, until she was flat against the metal wall, and she didn't resist. Rosa felt at first that she had an obligation to speak up in the name of rationality, but the greater part of her was much more interested in giving Red exactly what he wanted... with a decent fight involved, of the kind she'd been having difficulty granting him up until now. That look he was giving her resonated in the part of her that wanted to live the same way he did, reckless and edgy and unafraid of any kind of trouble the world had to offer.

No, Rosa decided as his lips collided firmly with hers, she wasn't afraid of getting in trouble. She liked trouble.

Then, she found herself letting the hunger sweep over her again, making it now five tournament losses in a row. In mere heartbeats after that, they had sunk to the cement floor, seeking out the other's weak points. She trailed her mouth to her ear, and his breath faltered as she fastened on a sensitive lobe; he returned the favor with a deliberate squeeze of her rear through her shorts. She teased him, gently but mercilessly; she nibbled at his neck, threatening to leave a mark behind in places he wouldn't be able to hide, and even fooled with the waistband of his boxers, snapping it with her thumbs once for extra effect. He often playfully copied her moves without error, making it even more unbearable every time she remembered he was just practicing the strategy he'd taken to using against her in battle — do what she did, just ten times better.

They never bothered shedding all of their clothes, only enough to make it work, wrenching open pants or pulling aside tights for access. Then he was sheathed in her, his fingers clamped tightly on her shoulders. She barely managed to bite back a moan as he clutched her for dear life, and he leaned in to seal their mouths closed with a kiss.

It was always like this: intense and wild and exciting; out in the open without any real expectation of privacy; disheveled and fast and stirring. It had become a regularity in the dark space under the seats every time he defeated her, and afterward, Rosa always took away the satisfaction of a risk well taken, even where she could not take a victory in the tournament just yet. She considered it a way to pay him back for being unable to best him in battle: by topping him in another field where he wasn't as unparalleled, if only measurable by hairs' breadths. Maybe he felt that way, too, judging by how he'd let her do so many things to him that made her feel faint with giddiness when she thought about them.

This was definitely something she couldn't argue with as a great cap to a great battle, even if she never won.

Finally, finally, she defeated him on her sixth try in conquering the champion's tournament. At first, Rosa hadn't been sure she even wanted to beat him anymore, because it might mean their little ritual rendezvous would cease. But after a promise of the loser of the next match getting to retaliate against the winner, made in nuances and gestures more than words, Rosa tried again, and succeeded stunningly.

The crowd had given her a thrilled and long-awaited standing ovation, but it took what seemed like an eternity for them to slow down when the two combatants couldn't possibly be out of there fast enough.

"You should follow through soon, you know." The purr of the words was nearly lost amidst the screaming and cheering of the audience, but from the sharp glance she was awarded, they found their way to the only person who needed to hear them. Red glanced around evaluatingly, and then smiled at her, subtle but still more brilliant than the blinding stadium lights.

There were no pretty words or elegant courtships after the prolonged teasing that had built up to this moment. "Soon" turned out to be thirty-five excruciating minutes later, mostly spent trying to dodge reporters and fellow trainers looking to congratulate her. By the time Red was tangled thoroughly in and around her, yanking shortly at her clothes and dragging his fingertips along her sides, she had no breath left to speak with anymore, anyway. Rosa was sure she'd have the design of the screws under the stands imprinted into her upper back by the time it was all over, but she couldn't think of a good reason to argue about it.

It didn't take long before she couldn't think at all, in fact; she was too busy being assailed by violently pleasurable shudders and pushed over the edge into one intense orgasm after another to bother.

The Castelia Times' news headline the next day read something along the lines of "Champion Tournament Begins and Ends With a Bang," as Rosa saw being displayed in the newspaper boxes near the drawbridge. She smiled secretly and laughed to herself; oh, if only they knew how literal they could've been.

Later, she approached him quickly. "I can't wait to battle you again. Let's have another great match next time, Red! Oh, by the way," a coy tip of his hat with her thumb, "you should come congratulate me. You know... in my hotel room. Tonight."

Red, as usual, had no verbal reply, but Rosa knew she could just hear him smiling from behind her as she darted off, feeling accomplished twice over.