Just something quick that I churned out because I've been really obsessing over SoulSilverShipping lately, and the only other alternative was to have this floating 'round and 'round my head. Apologies for any spelling, grammatical or other mistakes! Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. If I did, I would have added myself in to the series with a badass Haunter and a beautiful Gary Oak on my arm.
He doesn't get close to anyone.
If there's one thing he's learned through years of solitude, it's that being invested is overrated. So when the girl from that stupid lab where he'd stolen that stupid Pokémon who happens to have a smile like sunrise starts to leak into his thoughts, he tells himself he's going to battle her, and he's going to win. It won't be hard. She's a wimp with a knack for being in all the wrong places at all the wrong times, and that's where her skill set ends.
When she beats him for the first time, he's seething. He bites off a sarcastic remark or two, asks her if she's happy now. The way she's looking at him agitates him, with a look in her eyes like she'd known she was going to win from the beginning. Somehow, he ends up telling her his name. She says hers. Lyra. He wishes he hadn't committed it to memory the second he heard it.
She's becoming a frustratingly permanent fixture in his life. It's not like he wants her there, but she seems to have disillusioned herself into thinking she's going to be Champion one day, and since that's his future title, they just happen to in all the same places. It's in one of those places that they run into each other – or, more accurately, she runs into him – and she confesses that she hates sleeping alone. She's not used to being by herself so often, she tells him, and it's kinda lonely, even with her beloved Typhlosion by her side. He scoffs at her, rolls his eyes, but somehow when it starts getting dark he's sitting down next to her sleeping bag, keeping a look out amongst the trees because "sometimes hoothoot are in there with their big red eyes and they scare… Typhlosion". He tells her she's an idiot, but she only smiles and tells him that she's glad he's there.
She's lying on her back with her eyes closed, and when all he does is stand there she grins and tells him he's blocking her sun. When he says he doesn't care, she opens her eyes and gives him her most scathing look – but her mouth is already turning up at the corners and he wonders fleetingly why it is that she smiles so much around him. He extinguishes the thought before it can get away with itself, settling on the decision that he'd probably smile a lot too if he effortlessly beat all his opponents. She tells him to sit next to her and he does, not because she asked him to but because he's sick of having to crane his neck to look down at her. When she starts blathering on about how she likes the colour of his hair and "is it natural, Silv?" and generally saying anything trivial that comes to her mind, he tells himself that he's only staying because he doesn't want to give her the satisfaction of thinking that she bothers him enough to make him evacuate the area.
Her arms are around him and she's squeezing and he's trying to remind himself that she's nothing more than his rival, but when she pulls back and looks up into his eyes with something close to affection reflected in hers, he catches his breath and she tells him he doesn't have to be quite so frozen when she touches him. They're friends, she says, and it's natural for friends to celebrate when they've just beaten the Johto-Kanto Champion and his outrageously strong Gym-leader of a cousin. But he doesn't have friends, and even if he did then she wouldn't be one of them, because friends don't make you feel the way he was feeling. So he pushes her away, somewhat roughly, and for a second he thinks he sees a flash of hurt in her eyes but reminds himself that that can't be true because he treats everyone this way. But then he realizes that she's not everyone.
She's coming toward him, and he wants to pretend not to see her, but Feraligatr is already greeting her with a great roar and he can't stop himself from looking at her anyway. He hasn't seen her since they fought together in the Dragon's Den, and she's wearing a look of concentration that he's only ever seen when she's battling. He uncrosses his arms to accommodate for her closeness when she finally comes to a halt, and suddenly her hands are on his face and she's telling him that she sees right through him. One of his hands is on her wrist, slowly trailing down her arm until it reaches her shoulder, and then he's doing what he's always wanted to do and they're kissing.
He doesn't get close to anyone. But Lyra wasn't just anyone.