Title: Hope on Fire
(Alternate Title: The Adventures of Deino, assorted important humans, and that one boy who shares the same house.)
Disclaimer: I do not own either the Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon franchises. This is just for fun.
"No – Deino, no – Deino, STAY – argh, Mom, help!"
Deino happily ignores him, and starts chewing the handle of an upturned mulch-bucket. Yuuya looks between the little dragon and his trail of destruction. The berry plots he's been tending for the last two hours are invariably trampled, chobbled through, and all-around ruined.
"No, Deino, leave that alone," Yuuya says when the dragon pokes his nose into the berry-mulch and starts to root around for things to eat. He sets the bucket upright. Deino butts his head against it in impatient frustration, then starts to nibble on Yuuya's gloved hand. "Ow – stop that, Deino! How'd you even get out the house?"
"Oy, Yuuya!" Gongenzaka calls, jogging over, "is everything – No, Deino, no!" He lets out a very unmanly squeak as Deino lurches towards him. "Yuuya, do something!"
But the sight of his best friend, already close to six feet tall even without his geta, helplessly dancing around as a tiny dragon nips at his feet is much too funny for Yuuya to do anything but laugh. Only Gongenzaka coming perilously close to the last few untouched berry plants can break Yuuya out of his amusement. "Hey, watch those bushes!"
Squelch. Too late.
"Deino, come here," Yuuya pleads, as Gongenzaka narrowly misses crushing a second plant and the dragon narrowly misses Gongenzaka's shoe. "Deino! Bad dragon...!"
A pokéball lands nearby, splits open, and spills out the form of an Audino. At the sound of its warbling cry, more interesting than feet he can't catch, Deino changes direction and charges.
"Harmonia, use 'Play Nice' and calm Deino down!"
The Audino warbles again. Hearts and sparkles drift towards the careening dragon, and his pace slows a little, but not enough. Deino bumps into the Audino and sends them both tumbling. He doesn't attempt to bite, for once.
"Well done, Harmonia – good girl." Yuzu runs up, panting, and pulls Deino away from the softly peeping Audino. "Here, Deino, here." Deino turns his head and starts to gum at her arm. "Oh, you silly thing. What have you done here, then? Have you ruined all of Yuuya's hard work?"
Gongenzaka steps out of the berry patch before Yuzu can notice that Deino isn't the sole guilty party.
"I don't know how he got loose," Yuuya says, crouching down to Harmonia. The Audino sniffs his hand and allows him to pet her, briefly, before ducking behind Yuzu. "Just – suddenly, Deino. If we could control him then Cheery would be out of a job, huh?"
Cheery the Drilbur pokes her head out from an intact bush, worried expression firmly in place.
"I'll take him back to the house," says Yuzu. "Your mom should have finished the session with Futoshi and Tyro, so she'll be able to keep him under control. And Cheery, you can stop worrying!"
"Do you need a hand?"
"Deino will be good for me – won't you, sweetheart? Be right back. I'll bring us some water out, okay?" She scoops the dragon into her arms – because Harmonia is still nearby, crooning reassurance, Deino allows it with only an attempt to chew on her hair – and marches off. The dragon props his head on Yuzu's shoulder and garbles noise down at Harmonia, who trots along close at heel, her ears twitching.
"How she likes that thing, I'll never know," Gongenzaka grumbles. He looks around and winces. "Sorry."
"Call it soil regeneration. I can start these beds again next week; yours and Yuzu's should be enough for now..." Yuuya hands him a shovel, and pulls his goggles down over his eyes the moment his friend looks away. He knows he's doing it again, putting on a brave face when really he wants to let the negative emotions out, but it's second nature by now – and besides, it's not Gongenzaka's fault. He can't even blame Deino; the dragon was just being his usual bumbling, biting self.
Just... this is something he's good at, at last, and yet something always has to go wrong.
A Swablu settles on Gongenzaka's head, warbling cheerfully. Yuuya removes his goggles and scrubs futilely at his eyes, in the vain hope that nobody will notice, as Yuzu reappears on the scene. Her Kirlia is now out of its pokéball, too, and she dances alongside her trainer without movements that aren't as graceful as usual.
"When you said you'd bring water," Gongenzaka says, careful not to dislodge his new Swablu hat as he turns around, "I didn't think we'd be drinking out of a bucket. ...What's wrong?"
Yuzu sets down the bucket she's carrying. Kirlia leans against her leg, twining her arms around Yuzu's knee in a gesture of reassurance. "Something came up. Here," she says, as Harmonia offers washcloths to them all, "come on – !"
"What's happening?" Yuuya demands.
"Strong Ishijima," she says; Yuuya's already low mood plummets further at the name. "Well, not Ishijima – his manager, he's in your front room right now, talking to our parents. Your mom told me to fetch you two."
The Swablu, jostled from her perch, takes to the air as Gongenzaka grabs his shirt and jacket and puts them back on, while Yuzu and Yuuya – twin victims of mud-monster Deino – attempt to make themselves as presentable as they can when dressed in gardening clothes. Yuuya drops his cloth in the bucket. "Right, let's go."
"Wait, Yuuya, you've still got mud on your nose."
Yuzu dips her washcloth in the bucket and steps forward to wipe the streak of dirt away. Yuuya tries not to blush, and hopes she doesn't notice the redness of his eyes. "You're one to talk," he teases. Deflect, deflect. "Deino's managed to get berry-mulch in your hair."
Now Yuzu's the one blushing. "Your mom didn't mention it at all. Ugh."
"She was probably too amused by you willingly carrying Deino around. Not even Mom picks him up."
"He's not that bad," claims Yuzu, even as she attempts to wash the mulch from her hair. Gongenzaka struggles not to laugh, and Yuuya has to keep himself from meeting their friend's eyes, because everyone who isn't Yuzu knows that Deino is that bad.
"We've got your back," Gongenzaka says. Yuzu nods agreement, subdued despite Kirlia's efforts to cheer her.
And maybe he doesn't want to go, doesn't want to hear what this person has to say, doesn't want yet another reminder of the hole in his family, but if these guys think he can do it...?
"Race you back!" he shouts, already running, and he laughs at the shouts of "Cheater!" that ring out behind him.
Everything's okay if he can still laugh.