The snowmelt of Sinnoh and its cold, cold storms had left him pining for winter in Goldenrod, a pining he hasn't experienced in a long time. Touching snow always brings him back to days of pulling his father by the hand through layers of snowfall taller than his head, face half-frozen but eyes ablaze, eager to explore the paths not yet troughed.
But, though his feelings be scattered, his heart ultimately lies here in Littleroot.
Zuzu is more than elated to return; the homesick swampert makes a lumbering beeline for Professor Birch's lab, where he'd grown up, rubbing his wide cheeks against the walls happily. the thud of his fins alerts a few lab assistants, who poke their heads out the tiny square windows in bewilderment, pushing their sliding spectacles up their noses and waving their ball pens at the pokemon.
Ruby smiles at the starter. Hoenn is home to the both of them, now.
He knows that he told his mother that he'd go straight home, but since Zuzu was already at the lab, he didn't see an issue with saying hello to the Professor first. If he's actually in there, anyway. The man prefers the outdoors, invasively investigating pokemon habitats and homes.
Pushing the doors open, he walks into the mess of researchers running around with stacks of papers and little pokemon dashing across the floor, some chasing said researchers. It's comically chaotic, though he wonders why there are so many young pokemon running loose in the lab at all.
Ruby finds himself lucky, seeing Professor Birch kneeling by a bunch of baby pokemon by his desk.
"Ruby!" The jolly man exclaims when he notices the trainer. He's holding a tray of berries out for the baby pokemon to eat from, and his lab coat is stained with an interesting array of natural colors. "Welcome back! How was Sinnoh?"
"Hey, Professor!" Ruby smiles, kneeling by the man to pet a little zigzagoon. "Sinnoh was a dream. But don't take it from me. I have a documentary's worth of footage of the sights, and the contests... y'know, Hearthome City was by far the most beautiful city I've ever seen! I'll show you later."
"Ahh.. the travelling life. I'll be off to Sinnoh myself next year, but it's still so far away." Birch looks wistful for a moment; it's clear that he'd rather not be in the lab right now. "Anyway, you swept the contests, I presume?"
"Haha, naturally! Sapphire owes me a ton of berries now."
Ruby looks around the lab.
"Where is she, anyway?"
Birch seems to droop.
"She's supposed to be here. Sapphire loves baby pokemon," Birch sighs, stroking a small skitty's ears. "But I don't think she's been well lately."
Ruby pauses his own petting of the zigzagoon. She never told him that. "Is that so? Where is she, anyway?"
"Probably route 101," Birch replies, paternal worry settling into his features, "as usual. She said she needed a break from the researching, that she needed some time alone or something."
"That's.. odd."
"Yeah. But that was a few days ago. I was actually hoping to get you to look for her, when you got back." Birch looks at him pleadingly. "I've been swamped with work this past month, but I don't like the idea of Sapphire being sick on her own..."
Ruby understands, seeing the huge mess that the lab currently is. The Professor, a man even busier than his own dad, has trusted Sapphire to take care of herself in the forest for over six years now. And she's continuously proven herself to be made of figurative steel; Ruby can attest to that. But, even then, the usually jovial professor can't help but worry about her if he senses something is off.
"Of course, Professor. Don't you worry about it."
He's only been gone a little over a week, and the messages she sent him on the pokenav in that time never dwindled in frequency, so he'd wrongly believed everything was as fine on her end as it was on his. He stands up, brushing fur off his pants. "I'll go check on her now."
Professor Birch gives him a warm smile. "Thank you, Ruby. Let me know how she's doing."
x
Leaving his own pokemon at the lab to help the Professor round up the little ones (last he saw, Zuzu was being glomped by at least a dozen baby poochyena), Ruby makes his way through the elaborate path in Route 101 to the secret base. The cave-turned-swanky-pad he shared with Sapphire has become akin to a second bedroom of sorts for him; not that he ever spends the night there (way too cold!), but as he'll proudly tell anyone, it's pretty darn cozy. On lazy days, he'd spend a couple of hours sewing on the couch, with their pokemon dozing off among all the plushies and cushions and Sapphire doing whatever nearby.
Speaking of barbarians... Ruby looks up into the trees, half expecting the girl to burst out from the foliage and tackle him to the ground. (He'd be covered in dirt and consequently freak out, but he always divulges his date of return to her anyway.) It's become a welcome back tradition for when one of them is unable to follow the other; in this case, Sapphire had to stay back to help the Professor with a sudden surge of business. But after hearing that she's fallen sick, Ruby guesses that she might be a little too out of it to go skydiving.
He's right; Ruby finds her in the center of the base, curled up in a sea of pokedolls. Pokedolls that had once been arranged, by colour and height, on the nearby shelf.
"There's the beanbags for a reason," he states jokingly. But unease had crept its way into his heart the second he'd seen her with his own eyes. Without Sapphire ambushing him from the trees, and hearing about her alleged illness, seeing her look so vulnerable confirmed the hearsay. It's just... weird, seeing someone so tough be ill.
Sapphire has yet to acknowledge or reply to him, so he makes his way over to her cotton nest. He tries to peer over her, to see her face.
"Saph?"
She groans, squeezing the azumarill plushie in her arms even tighter and burrowing her head into its abused belly. Its lifeless, beady eyes looked ready to pop off. At the very least, he muses, it's one of the cheaper dolls.
He kneels by her, hand on her shoulder now. She stiffens at the contact, and that hasn't happened in years; they'd grown a lot more cuddly over that time. He's naturally a bit offended. "Hey, Sapphire?"
It looks like it was his touch that finally made her aware of his presence. Or forced her to stop ignoring him. He's not sure which worried him more, because Sapphire's instincts allowed her to detect him a mile away.
"R-Ruby," she finally says, looking up at him dolefully. Her hair is complete mess, and she sounds defeated. "Yer back early."
At least she's able to talk. "There wasn't much competition; I'll show you all the ribbons we got later." Sapphire looks uncomfortable with him touching her, muscles tense, so he reluctantly lets go of her shoulder.
"Now what's up with you? Your hair is absolutely atrocious. Didn't I tell you to brush?"
"I don't... feel so good."
Her breath is shaky. He knits his brows. Sapphire is practically immune to illness.
"I can see that. How long have you been sick?"
"Ugh... a few days, or somethin' like that..."
"And why didn't you tell me?" He gives her a stern look.
"Uhm," Sapphire breaks her gaze, before rolling over to stare at the wall, "Ya weren't supposed to know."
There's a rift; one, she's not looking at him, two, she has him talking to her back, and three, she's hiding something. Behaviours he'd normally attribute to himself. It's more than a little jarring to have Sapphire act like this, because he often feels he'd already had enough of himself– not to mention he's grown used to the girl who spins you around with iron strength, looks you in the eye, and tells you that you're a weenie (or anything else she thinks sounds derogatory enough to express her ire at him).
Sapphire's been sick just once before, with a cold, but seeing that he'd been her nurse throughout those four quiet days, this definitely isn't a cold. Apart from her tired disposition, and incessant hugging of the azumarill whose cotton fur is bursting at the seams, she looks pretty normal.
"Okay, c'mere Saph. Let me check your temperature."
His hand is moments away from her forehead when she scrambles away, scattering plushies in her haste. With her back is pressed against the wall, she looks at him with eyes almost as shocked as his.
"I– no, I'm fine!"
What's she so afraid of?
"No, Sapphire, you're not fine." He watches her suspiciously. "You just said you weren't."
He takes a step towards her, and she shrinks away.
Is she trying to avoid him? A sudden pang of hurt grips his heart; the realisation that their fingers could never intertwine again, that he couldn't touch her anymore because she wouldn't let him (and he wouldn't, if she wished it), and then, another unfounded fear out of nowhere.
Panic seeps into his voice. "Did something happen while I was gone? Saph, you can always tell me, you know– I promise I'll help you–"
"I said I'm fine!" the girl protests again, louder, fear in her eyes that only serve to feed his own terror, and without further preamble she makes a mad dash for the exit.
A limp of some sort hinders her normal speed. It's as if she'd injured both her legs, or something. At that speed, he could've easily caught her and interrogated her a little more.
But he lets her go, leaving him alone to stew in a growing sea of dark thoughts.
x
That night, he lies in bed unable to sleep at two in the morning, mind swimming. His active mind has Ruru up too, and the kirlia fidgets anxiously at the edge of the mattress. Zuzu, Nana and the rest doze peacefully across the carpet, their soft collective snores becoming the ambience to his thoughts.
He'd told the Professor that Sapphire was getting better, and that she'd be back to help in the lab soon. The poor man looked so busy that Ruby couldn't just add more to his plate of worries. And it was only half a lie, since he didn't really know when she'd recover. Maybe it'd be in a few days. At the same time, Ruby still legitimately has no clue as to what had actually happened to her. He didn't know whether she was actually down with a bug, or... injured...
He knows he's thinking terrible things; that he's only assuming the worst, making himself angry. But his imagination is vivid, like the dreams that plague him every odd night, the ones that play for him a thousand ways for Sapphire to die. How can he be blamed for the things his mind comes up with? The darkness that has always existed in his heart?
Ruru lays a gentle hand on his arm, breaking him out of his thoughts. Her horns glow much too bright, and he shuts his eyes reflexively against the intensity of his own emotions.
"I know, I know... I'm thinking too much." he says, trying to push away the scenarios his twisted mind had conjured, replacing them with better thoughts. The kirlia coos, evaluating the thoughts running through his mind before shaking her head. "Sorry, I'll try to sleep."
Ruru blinks at him, before turning to his bedside table and gesturing at the single pokeball resting there. He smiles.
"Right. If nothing else makes her feel better, this will, won't it?"
Ruru nods her head happily.
x
Today, while the pokedolls are exactly how he'd rearranged them yesterday, there is a newly formed nest of colourful beanbags behind the couch. It twitches as he approaches. She is inevitably buried under it– she'd listened to his advice, at least– but he doesn't touch her sanctuary, instead opting to crouch nearby. In all honesty, he doesn't remember buying that many beanbags in the first place, but if they keep her comfortable then he won't look into it.
"Hey," the beanbag pile shifts again upon hearing his voice. "Saph, look, I'm sorry."
Muffled breathing, then, "Why?"
"For yesterday. I was being too pushy."
"...Oh."
"I don't know what–" he levels his voice, his mind, "–what happened, while I was gone, or what I could do to help you feel better..."
Silence.
"...But, just remember that I care about you, Sapphire. And if there's anything you need to help you feel better, I'll do it. In a heartbeat."
The beanbags move again, allowing him to find where her head is. She's peeking up at him tiredly, as if contemplating taking him up on his offer.
The urge to take her and just embrace her is almost too great. He'd left her behind and now she's gotten... hurt, or something, and she can't tell him why. If she's gotten hurt again, he'd... he'd never forgive himself. He involuntarily clenches his fist.
"...Ruby..."
His head snaps up. "Yes?"
"Can... y-you leave me alone?"
Oh. He feels his face fall.
Perhaps, he'll admit, he'd been feeling rather entitled lately. Perhaps he'd been expecting Sapphire's attentions without thinking about her own wellbeing. He's been playing with the cap on his feelings for so long that he's taken her attentions for granted. Maybe he's just a needy best friend who was looking forward to a welcome back hug, but didn't get one, and is now desperate for attention. And he'd thought he had more dimensions than that.
But that doesn't mean that he can't start caring now.
"I got you something from Sinnoh," he baits with a singing lilt, the tune he uses every time he gets her a present. Even ill, he knows she's always excited about getting stuff.
"...Huh?"
"You'll have to see it for yourself." He lays a hand on his pocket. "And I'm sure you'll love it."
"...Uhh... thanks."
"Don't you want to see it?"
She makes a tired sound. "Maybe some other time... can you just go?"
He deflates again. Sapphire's even less talkative than yesterday, and yesterday was already worrying. She doesn't even want her gift!
"Alright then. If you want me to go... I'll just see you tomorrow." He'd check in on her more often, but he doesn't want to agitate her either. Of course, Ruru is already out of her pokeball, ready to stay vigil by the girl's side until then. She'll tell him if anything happens. "We can open your gift then, 'kay?"
Sapphire makes a muffled noise, but he decides to take it as a yes.
x
Day three. Ruby had given a call to the doctor yesterday, trying to narrow down Sapphire's symptoms to find what she's sick with, but the fact remained that he honestly hadn't been able to tell of any symptoms besides her looking tired and trying to hide from him. Now that he thinks about it, if Sapphire actually wanted to hide from him, she wouldn't be in the secret base. He chews his lip. What's going on?
Either way, the doctor agreed to a free appointment for her today– being celebrities in Hoenn definitely had its perks– so Ruby made his way to the secret base to pick her up. He hopes he won't have to drag her there.
When he enters the cave, he sees Ruru stroking Sapphire's back comfortingly. The kirlia looks rather worried, while the girl doesn't seem to move. She's sitting up, at least.
"Ruru? Saph?"
The kirlia perks up, then runs over to him. She makes a series of trilling noises that he can't understand while flapping her arms about.
"Wait, you know what's wrong with her?"
Ruru nods vigorously. Ruby wishes then that he had senior Yellow's ability to understand pokemon language. But that would be unnecessary, since he's bringing Sapphire to the doctor right now anyway and he'll give him the same diagnosis, just in English.
"Alright... well, we're going to the doctor now. Thanks for taking care of her, Ruru."
The kirlia stills looks anxious when he recalls her to her pokeball.
"Saph? Hey, we're going to the hospital." He walks over to her. "You okay enough to move?"
She doesn't respond, though he sees her tense up as he approaches. He frowns. This... this is just... so unlike her, and it makes him uncomfortable.
"I'll carry you if I have to, Sapphire." He says sternly. "We need to find out what's gotten you sick so that you can recover, alright?"
He sits beside her and reaches for her shoulder, but it's at that moment that she finally reacts to him. She turns to face him completely. She stares deeply into his face, though not quite meeting his eyes. Words die on his tongue as he gazes at her face for the first time in over a week.
She's just... staring at him silently. It's pretty awkward on his end, at least, and he wonders at first if she's angry or something. But the look she gives him is different from her usual angry glare. Not to mention that her eyes are always sharp, alert. But right now they're... hazy. Unfocused. He'd say that she looks kind of tired, but tired just doesn't seem like the right word. She just doesn't... look quite awake.
With someone as tempestuously expressive as Sapphire, he'd thought that by now he'd seen just about every emotion on the spectrum played raw on her scratched little face, but apparently he's wrong. Right now, he can't read her. Or maybe he's a bit blinded by worry? But she's always been an open book. An open book without a cover, even–
Suddenly, she springs.
Sapphire's tackled him to the dirt, to the floor, into the water, everywhere– all for the fun of incapacitating live prey and seeing him get dirty. And, of course, to show her devoted affection in that odd way of hers. She's made pouncing attempts on Emerald and Wally before, once each, the former she nearly squished and the latter broke out into an awful coughing fit that only subsided after half an hour of apologetic glasses of water.
He'd given her advice– and a slideshow, once– on methods of expressing camaraderie, among other emotions, in a socially acceptable manner, but they were half-hearted attempts at most. He knows she can't help it. If his best friend was part pokemon, so be it.
But the way she has pinned him down right now, gripping his arms with iron force as her tongue heatedly paints the skin of his neck, canines brushing his throat and a low growl rising in her own, it's one of those occasions when he's not really sure whether she's just his best friend.
In his dreams, he'd always been the one to top; the first time, she'd be shy and redder than his namesake, but he'd guide her with soft beautifly kisses and slow, wandering hands, whispering coaxingly into her ear.
Though the way she drags her soft tongue sensuously over his skin is, very, very nice. The wet trails her tongue leaves it its wake, exposed to air, are terribly cold, but she returns to the same spot a few moments later, warming it again, the sensation adding to the lava pooling in his gut. They're both panting a little, growing restless, particularly Sapphire.
As he finds himself unconsciously tipping back his head to allow her more access to his throat, his bleary mind tells him that Sapphire had never done anything like this before– that she'd hid from him for a week after the one time he'd pecked her forehead– and that something, something suspicious, is up.
Ruby's hands attempt to grab her forearms and pull her away, because this is not how he'd imagined it to be, and something's definitely not right– but she doesn't like him resisting, so she sinks her sharpened teeth deep into his neck with a guttural growl.
It feels like he'd been stabbed by tiny, needlepoint claws. A cry of pain escapes his mouth and tears form at the corners of his eyes, partially because Sapphire stays like that, fangs buried in his skin for a few seconds, her heated breath irritating his new wounds. He feels a thin trickle of warm liquid running down his neck. He worries over whether it's from her, or from him.
He has to stop her. "S-Sa–"
She releases his neck, but then brings her hips down on his groin almost painfully, effectively shutting him up. Something hot and wet slides across the thin material of his trousers, and his... growing problem. Through the white hot pleasure coursing through his veins and blurring his eyesight, he faintly remembers that Sapphire was never much of an underwear enthusiast.
The hold she has on him is enough to bruise his upper arms; it hurts, a lot, but his tongue fails to form any words through the haze of ecstasy. He can't pretend: he's turned on as hell. Her hair is wilder than ever, his week-long absence likely resulting in a week without brushing. With every buck of her hips, he feels the gap that had grown between them close until they finally overlapped.
She lifts her head away from his throat, and he meets her eye for the first time since their escapade began. Her innocuous blues are now hazy, dark as an evening storm... her irises are thin, like a demon possessed. A faint smile plays at her bloodstained lips. For a moment, she gazes at him hungrily through constricted pupils. His breath catches in his throat as he stares back.
Sultry. She's telling him through her eyes that she wants to fuck him. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd see that kind of look on her–
Sapphire shoves him to the floor, unable to control her strength (or maybe not caring enough to? He doesn't know). Though the floor is carpeted, the impact his head makes with the ground isn't very pleasant, and he's dazed as she continues to wildly dry hump him. He remembers warning her once that she might break his skull one day, though with what's happening right now, perhaps she'd done it long ago and these are all the side effects. Not that he minded a concussion right now, because he feels like he's about to explode...
She bucks against him violently with a growl, suddenly frantic, rubbing her soaked shorts against his straining pants with increased fervour– a trail of saliva escapes the edge of her mouth, falling onto his shirt. Is she close? So soon? Though to be fair, he's not far along himself, feeling his own drool slipping down his stinging neck. He reaches out to grab her waist, to bring her down over and over again. They're both panting heavily now, as if unhinged, and his clothes are rubbing painfully against his sweating back. Her grip is going to leave bruises, and his head is swimming, but he still cries out in pleasure through the pain, because everything just feels... so good...
.
.
.
x
It's been years since the last time he'd taken this long to thread a needle. His fingers can't stop shaking, can't forget the curve of Sapphire's hips under his palms.
He's good at lying to himself, but the fact that one of his most vile, perverse fantasies of the night had come true a little over twelve hours ago cannot simply be buried away like other events he's tried to forget.
The hickeys and bite marks decorating his neck are awful. Meanwhile, the pain of the fingerprint-sized bruises that dapple his arms serve as a constant souvenir of their little escapade. He'd discovered even more bruises down south, too, which explains why walking has become torture. Not that he'll let his parents find out.
"What's with the turtleneck?" his mother inquires as he gingerly seats himself at the dining table.
He smiles, sheepish, trying to push down the flame rising in his cheeks. "I'm not feeling so great. Sinnoh was pretty cold, so I probably caught something."
"You were fine earlier," Norman says, eyeing him too. Yeah, he's not fooling his dad, but that doesn't mean that he has to come clean either.
"Oh, if not a cold, it's probably just jet lag," Ruby appeases. "I'm sure I'll feel better in a few days." He doubts the bruises will heal for another month, though.
His mother takes her place in her seat. "Hmm... maybe you got it from Sapphire when you saw her earlier. You know she's been sick lately? Poor thing, not even her father knows what's going on with her..."
The mere mention of Sapphire's name has him sinking down in his chair, but he sits back up when his bruises start to ache. His mom is totally right, though. He sure did get it from Sapphire.
But if there's anyone who deserves pity right now, it's him, because he's hurting everywhere and he trying to hide evidence of his make-out session with his best friend (of whom he has decided to avoid like the plague for the entirety of next year, and maybe the next, too, by going on a trip to Unova) from his parents, and particularly his father, who is glowering at him suspiciously from over the table.
Excusing himself early from the dinner table isn't very common anymore, but this is a secret he won't let spill. He locks the door to his room, maybe a little too loudly because Coco is startled awake. The delcatty's fur stands on end as she regards him suspiciously.
He tries to return to his sewing, to get his mind off... that, but his mind refuses to change course.
"Ow!"
He stares at his index finger. He hasn't pricked himself since he was nine.
As Coco pads over to lick the tiny red wound, his thoughts begin to drift once more. He's not sure if he'll ever be able to look at Sapphire in the eye ever again. He'd been telling her for five whole years that he doesn't know of her feelings for him; and after that round of dry humping on the floor of their secret base– that, while she initiated, he eagerly participated– he doubts she'll take that excuse any more. She's probably prowling around the outside of his house right now, fuming.
If only he could come clean; if only he was worthy of her companionship at all. If only he didn't have the innocence of a little girl on his hands. Maybe then her battle-blinded heart would have known better than to fall in love with him.
x
Unfortunately for Ruby, Sapphire is not just his best-friend-from-childhood, but also his next-door neighbour, and hiding from your best-friend-from-childhood-and-also-next-door neighbour with mach 2 agility and sense of smell and hearing on par with his own mightyena is nigh impossible. Especially if she regularly scales the tree by your bedroom window. Sometimes, he can even see the five little slots in the bark where she'd dig her claws into every time she pulls herself up the trunk.
The window is closed, and that should be a good enough sign that he doesn't want to talk right now. He'd been hoping that she'd be too embarrassed to look for him too, after what happened.
But lady luck is not on his side today, and based on the rustling and scratching at the window, Sapphire wants inside. She throws it open, even though it was locked; he watches idly as the snapped hook flies across his bed.
"Oops! Sorry, again, but there's no reason ta lock it, Ruby."
Sapphire perches on the windowsill like she always does, an oversized pidgey, grinning at him without a trace of guilt whatsoever for the busted lock. Or anything, really. There's no hesitation in her face, her voice, her body language.
What's she playing at?
His hands are still paused, hovering with his folded shirt that he'd been packing into his suitcase for the Unova trip. (With all his things scattered around him on the floor, he probably looks like he's still unpacking from that trip to Sinnoh. Thank god he won't be needing to explain himself for this.)
Ruby wants to say something, anything, but the words don't come. What is he even supposed to say at this point? Why is she even here, after...
He'd been trying to avoid her gaze, but she's already caught his eye, and suddenly he's on the receiving end of a warm, overdue welcome-back hug.
His mind is full of innocent thoughts.
"So, when did ya come back? Yer a bit early!"
When?
"Um, two days ago? We– we–"
She pulls away to speak to his face. For some reason, he can't see any shyness in hers, and it's unnerving because it is a scientifically proven fact that Sapphire is a terrible actress– she accidentally tore a hole in Coco's glittery mantle once (the one he always uses in cute contests, because to this day, he loves how it turned out), and the next time she saw him, she'd stared at him wide-eyed for all but two seconds before spilling the beans and almost humorously begging for his forgiveness.
"Really? Why didn't i know?" Sapphire rocks back and forth on her heels, bouncy as ever. Despite the tightening of his throat, he's happy to see her healthy again. "Well, I guess I've been kinda sick, so I've just been sleeping all over the place. Sorry 'bout that!"
Right... sick.
"Oh. So are you... feeling any better?"
She beams prettily, dimples and all, and he finds himself staring at the fangs that sunk into his neck yesterday. "Yep, tons! actually, I feel awesomer than ever!" She elbows him in the arm. Well, there's another bruise.
"Yesterday? Don't you... remember what happened?"
"Yesterday...?" She blinks confusedly. "No? I don't remem–"
She freezes, and he stops breathing for a moment when she jumps up and rounds on him, an angry flame in her eye. Does she recall–
"You do remember, don't you?!"
"Wh- me?"
"Mirage Island!"
He's so torn between relief and frustration that he doesn't bother with a reply. He takes the pokeball he's been fiddling with out of his pocket and presents it to her irate face. Her eyes latch onto it immediately.
"...Wha's this?"
"It's for you." He manages a smile. "From Sinnoh."
Sapphire's curiosity wins over her anger, outburst gone as fast as it first happened (the arguments over the topic had become so commonplace that she lets it go sooner now). Taking the pokeball, she peers through its translucent top.
The pokemon inside stares back at her, and after a moment's hesitation, waves a little, like he'd asked him to. Ruby had supposed that the action would win her over.
He's right, because Sapphire no less than squeals in excitement, eyes lit up like stars as she releases the kirlia from the pokeball.
At least, he thinks, she's alright now.
x
Sapphire, as she always has, continues to invite herself in to his room whenever she pleases. Inevitably, one day, she catches him without his turtleneck. Her startled gasp nearly sends him five feet into the air.
"Why're ya all bruised?" she squeaks, mortified.
Doesn't she know? "A-ah, Saph..."
"Ruby!" The girl hops off the window ledge and stomps over to him, a long, deep growl escaping her throat. "Who did this to you?!"
"I... fell in the snow, back in Snowpoint," he's glad that he's practically a pathological liar by this point, able to conjure up fake truths on the fly, because can barely force his tongue to move. Probably because he keeps seeing the ghost of that sultry look on Sapphire's features. "It was really deep, and I bothered a lot of wild pokemon with the noise."
Her mouth is pulled into a frown. Ruby sighs internally. There are two people he'll never be able to fool completely: his dad, and Sapphire herself.
Without warning, she takes his arm, and ignoring his flinch, examines his bruises carefully, mumbling something about berries that would help. While she's occupied, he tries to crane his neck to see under her skirt– god, he feels so perverted, but he's desperate to know whether all that business was even real. So if he'd been– uh– gripping her thighs as hard as he thought he'd been, there would naturally be bruises on her too.
He just had to make sure. Was that event just all a dream, and he'd injured himself somehow? Or maybe it was all real, and Sapphire didn't remember it for some reason. The latter sounded slightly more improbable, because Sapphire has a vivid memory and Ruby had a lot of nightmares.
Regardless, if he was so sick, so sexually deprived that he'd ended up hallucinating– and not just dreaming– about having a messy make out session with her, then he should be as far away from her as possible.
It's been a week, and Sapphire doesn't seem to recall any of the humping that occurred between them on this very floor. And she can't lie, because she doesn't know how. He's utterly baffled. There's no way it could have possibly just been been a wet dream. He has all the marks to show for it.
It suddenly occurs to him, as he stares at the way her tanned thighs are placed atop one another, that she's wearing even fewer clothes right now than on that day. There's nothing under her skimpy leaf skirt. No shorts. No barriers.
Despite his horribly aching body, he's still horny. He pinches himself, hard.
"Hey," Sapphire chides, noticing his action, "are ya sure you didn't just pinch yerself all these bruises?"
She shifts, and a string of dicot leaves spread over her thigh, obscuring his view. He sighs inwardly; he'll have to wait for the next opportunity.
"Contests are pretty stressful, that's all." he attempts a lame explanation, "Anyway, the bruises don't really hurt much. It was just a bunch of angry snorunt punching me with their little hands. I'm fine."
Sapphire eyes him suspiciously, but lets go of his arm.
"Well... if ya say so."
x
Sapphire immediately dubbed the kirlia Kiruru; he'd wondered aloud if it was too feminine for a male pokemon, but she'd ignored his musings in favour of gushing over her new team member. The psychic type had been given a rundown of his intended trainer's personality, and though Kiruru still looked a bit uncomfortable between the cuddling and multiple declarations of how cute he is, he seemed to take it well enough.
"If both Kiruru and Ruru evolve into gardevoir," the girl rambles on, "they'll be like, the perfect battle couple! Ah, that would be so adorable, don't ya agree?"
Fortunately, Wally is the one person who can and will both listen and care about everything she says. "Yeah, they're a matching set! you two are already a pretty good double battle pair, and you using matching pokemon would be kinda cool to see."
"We'd have the same pokemon! Oh wow, this is so awesome!" she gazes dreamily at Kiruru. "Let's go train up soon, ok?"
Kiruru blinks, before nodding shyly, the adornments on his head aglow with Sapphire's sentiments. Ruru smiles fondly at Kiruru too, but she keeps glancing in Ruby's direction. He shakes his head.
x
"Well, looks like the baby pokemon are generally very healthy. It's been a good season." the Professor says as they stand by the forest outskirts. The lab is in sight behind them. They've been slowly releasing the young pokemon back into the wild, but there are a couple that decided to linger, and now all the lab assistants are trying to coax the pokemon to go home. "Though we may have allowed some of them to become too domesticated this time 'round."
"Haha, yeah, seems like it! But most of them have gone back by now; they know where their home is." Ruby says, watching Zuzu try to remove a little poochyena from his tail. "I guess you can't really change their natural instincts."
The Professor nods thoughtfully.
"We still have four dozen egg samples to analyse, but we can take a bit more time with that before returning the eggs too. Good thing eggs don't need tons of food and running space."
A couple zigzagoon brush past Ruby's shoes as they head into the forest.
"Anyway, as exciting as everything has been, I could use a week-long nap." Birch stretches out his arms and gives his spine a crack. "I'm glad it's over now."
Over? "Hmm? What's over?"
The professor blinks. "Why, heat season of course! We won't be seeing near as many infant pokemon at once 'till this time next year."
"Heat season, huh."
Ruby watches the last few baby zigzagoon scuttle through the brush into the forest, before finally doing a double-take.
"...Wait, heat season?!"
He suddenly feels faint.