Sky Drop

by ayasato

While he'll admit that he doesn't go out much, he's still pretty sure that Sapphire shouldn't be eating fucking pokeblocks. Why is she even in his house again?

It all begins when they hear banging on the front door. He nearly drops his drill in surprise; his only visitor is only ever the occasional mail pelipper. There was that one time Todd dropped by, but neither he nor the pelipper had tried to break the door in when they arrived.

A few seconds of silence, and Emerald is about to return to his work before another round of banging rattles the apartment walls, and he irritably tosses his drill and screws to the floor. "Fuck!"

Roused from his nap, a disgruntled Sceptile slips off the work bench and makes for the entrance, tail swaying in mild irritation. By the time Emerald catches up to him, the pokemon is already peering through the peep-hole, and the way his shoulders stiffen only fuels the trainer's growing worry.

"Who is it?" he hisses to Sceptile, who only gives him an unreadable glance before looking back at the newcomer outside. A moment later, the person on the other side of the door begins another round of bludgeoning the poor piece of wood, and their muffled voice calls his name.

"Hey! Emerald! I found ya!"

Goddamn it.

He shoots Sceptile a terrified look, before the boy slowly begins his retreat to the work-room.

"C'mon, open up!"

He ignores the calls, tiptoeing away from the door and Sceptile's inquiring gaze.

She could knock all day; they weren't home.

xxx

"Em'rald!" A happy voice squeals, and he's violently knocked off his chair by a whirlwind that squeezes him in a crushing hug. They crash onto the floor, and though his attacker takes the brunt of the impact for him he's still completely stunned at the sudden turn of events.

The click of Sceptile's claws gracing the tiles as the pokemon casually treds into the workshop registers as background noise to the girl's happy giggles. It's hard to see– and actually, he's beginning to have trouble breathing– and Emerald flails, attempting to push away curtains of tea brown from blocking his vision.

"How the hell," he gasps through a faceful of matted hair, "did you get in?"

"Window!" she announces cheerfully.

"What?! I locked those!"

Sapphire pulls away to examine him, strong hands on his small shoulders. He's busy pondering the sabotage of his locked windows when his eyes are drawn to her scratched, tanned face. Her hair is longer and frames her face messily, and her eyes are exactly as he remembered them to be; a vibrant ocean. Sharpened canines tease the edge of her lips as she beams down at him with rather one-sided excitement.

"And hey, it's been forever– ya look really old!"

"It's only been two years." he mutters, avoiding her gaze by staring at her wiry, dirty arms.

A pause. "That's way too long, ya know?"

He looks down, almost guilty. The distance between Lilycove and Littleroot is far, and yet here she is anyway.

"...I know."

Even sitting down, she's so tall; nowhere as tall as her not-boyfriend, but compared to his stilt-less state, that extra height made the difference between a mildly annoyed Emerald and a very annoyed Emerald. He glares up at her.

Sapphire only hums in response, poking the gem on his forehead. His scowl deepens.

"Well, now that I gotcha, there's no more hidin'! Got that?"

Finally liberating him from her imprisoning hug, she pulls him to his feet. Emerald takes the opportunity to tear himself away from her hands, whipping around to glare at Sceptile, who lounges apathetically on the bench. The grass-type merely shrugs at him, but a smirk plays at the edge of his lips and he can see the amused glint in his pokemon's eye.

Bastard, he mouths at him. Who else could've unlocked the windows, if not Sceptile?

He brushes off imaginary dust from his clothes. Meanwhile, Sapphire picks up the half-finished project that lay vulnerable on the floor– a new type of harmless shooter he's hoping will be useful in taming pokemon– and the tiny gear he'd been painstakingly trying to place inside falls out. She swiftly catches it again before he can say anything.

"Hey, is this lil' thing what ya've been workin' on for the past two years?"

"One of many projects," he corrects, "and stay away from there, you're gonna mess up my work."

Taking back his gadget from her hands, he begins rearranging his work desk in a frugal manner to avoid as many casualties as possible, grumbling all the while.

"Why're you even here... mess... ugh, where's Ruby?"

It's her turn to pause before responding.

"…Doin' some contests," she eventually mutters, toeing the floor with her shoe.

An acerbic response; Sapphire had never been curt (as far as he remembers, anyway; he's not particularly interested in her long-term character development) and she's trying too hard to sound casual about it, but he doesn't care enough to pry. Even if he wouldn't have minded if she'd just admitted that she and Ruby had broken up, which honestly had to be the case, right? But whatever.

Having made the situation awkward in both ways, he feels her lingering stare on his back as he tends to his desk. "…You can go sit at the back 'till I'm done here. Then we'll talk."

"Umm, okay!"

He hears her bound away.

This is awful. Awful, awful, awful. Emerald clutches his head in frustration. He's still at the basic prototype stage of his new shooter, yet simultaneously the most intricate part of it– putting the new mechanic together itself required hours of meticulous and unbroken concentration. But with that broken, he probably won't be able to settle down until the evening, pushing back his production schedule by more time he'd be willing to lose. Not to mention that the new feed for his 3D printer was going to be delivered in a few hours, and sorting it all out with that idiot here would just give him unnecessary stress.

The sound of Sapphire rummaging through his other drawers behind him breaks him from his thoughts, and he flips around instantly. "H-hey!"

The girl drops a screwdriver back into the drawer in surprise.

"What is it?"

"House rule number one," he seethes, marching over to her side to slam the drawer shut, "don't touch anything."

"Oh, okay."

Sapphire doesn't seem particularly apologetic– sheepish, at best– but now she just stands there, staring down at him expectantly with bright eyes.

…What does she want?

"So." He shifts uncomfortably under her gaze. "What are you doing breaking into my house?"

"We spent forever lookin' for your place, and I finally found it!" Sapphire seems to perk up the moment he speaks, and makes a leap onto the nearby couch. The way it creaks make his teeth grind. "Yanno, since you wouldn't tell us where ya live, remember?"

He observes the new muddy patches on his couch with disdain. "For good reason."

"So now that I gotcha, let's–"

"Get out."

"Eh?!" She looks at him in bewilderment, but he only stares back impassively, arms crossed. "Leave?"

"Did I stutter?"

"But I can't leave so soon!"

Sapphire suddenly grabs the couch cushions and covers herself with them, burying herself into the couch and looking like a new breed of burmy. He scowls. Ruby must've taught her his technique of acting all cute to work to her advantage, but those antics wouldn't work on him.

"And why can't you leave? I'm fucking busy. What do you want, me to throw you a tea party?"

Her head bursts from the cushion pile again. "N-no way! I'm just here for... um..."

She taps her chin, and he taps his foot. She perks up after a few seconds of deliberation.

"A battle!"

He makes a face. "A battle? That's the reason you're here?"

Sapphire blinks, then nods vigorously, matted locks bouncing, and the couch creaks some more.

"Yep! You won't say no to a battle, would ya?"

He generally wouldn't, but he's also in a terrible mood. She's one of the two last people that he'd ever want to see, and he's seeing her now, leaving mudstains on his couch and floor.

"Yes, I would. I decline. So leave."

"Whaaaat?" She pouts.

"I don't remember ever letting you in. Why should I have to do anything you say?"

"But…" She looks at him pleadingly with big, doleful eyes. "I haven't seen ya in two whole years. Won't ya just battle me once?"

"I…"

He looks away.

What would Crystal do if someone tried to guilt her into doing something? Kick them, maybe, depending on the situation. But he knows that he can't toss Sapphire out the window again; he'd get in trouble, not to mention he's not really that kind of person anymore. And technically, he does kind of owe all his fellow Dexholders in general for helping out at the Battle Frontier years back. There's no way he could've won that battle without their help.

Maybe, if he just humors Sapphire once, the favor would be considered repaid for both her and her boyfriend. After this, he wouldn't have to deal with either of them out of obligation ever again.

"Okay, look," he finally concedes, now that he had a plan, "how about you just, go on home and come back another time? We'll have a battle, just gimme time to prepare. I'm having an aneurysm here."

"Oh, okay!" She stares at him. He can almost see the creaky, shaky gears in her head turning, hopelessly trying to find the meaning of the word 'aneurysm'. After a moment or two of failed processing, she asks, "So we battle then?"

"If you take a bath before coming here next time."

Emerald gives her muddy outfit a disapproving once-over. What had once been pale blue fabric is now more like a mottled gray-brown, and there's a twig or two in her hair bun. Had he ever even seen her this dirty in person? Why isn't Ruby doing something about this?

"Okay, okay!" Sapphire bounces up and off the couch, looking excited and sprightly. She shakes her hair, and some dried leaves he didn't even know were there flutter out.

"So ya promise?"

He sighs in resignation. "Yeah, now shoo."

Sapphire beams, reaching over to ruffle his hair. He shrieks in indignation when he feels the undoing of his ponytail, slapping her hand away.

"Don't! Touch. The hair." he growls out.

"Okay, okay!" The girl only laughs. "Bye, Rald!"

She walks out into the hallway, looks back, and when he glares at her she scampers off for real. A series of scrabbling noises at the window, and she's gone; he immediately goes over to slam the thing shut and lock it up.

Sceptile makes a noise akin to a chuckle when he returns to the work room.

"You," Emerald seethes, pointing an accusatory finger at his pokemon. "I told you that I don't like them!"

The grass-type merely rolls his eyes, turning to leave.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! I know you opened the window! You can't just meddle with my life like this!" He runs in front of Sceptile, blocking his path. "Next time someone tries to sneak into the house, you chase them off!"

The grass-type merely rolls his amber eyes, clicking his tongue.

"And actually, how the hell did she even get my address? Sceptile, did you do that too?"

Sceptile cocks his head and shrugs.

"GAHH!"

Clutching his head, Emerald flops down at his desk, staring forlornly at his handwritten schedule for the day. He'd wasted too much time with Sapphire, and their planned battle would only take away more of that time.

He can't just mess around– he has work! He has a goal!He has- he has to- why couldn't she understand that?

Ughhh.

"I'm blocking every window and door once this is over." Emerald grumbles. Somewhere behind him, Sceptile snorts derisively.

xxx

He hadn't expected her to come back the very next day. A week, a day or two, but the very next day? Though in retrospect, he really should have known. He had promised.

"Look at these!" she waves a pokeblock in his face. Her hand comes too close and his wrench nearly falls out of his hand. "You should try one!"

While he'll admit that he doesn't go out much, he's still pretty sure that Sapphire shouldn't be eating fucking pokeblocks. Why is she even in his house again?

His eyebrows furrow. "Aren't those for, oh I dunno, pokemon?"

She looks genuinely surprised, pouting.

"Can't anyone eat them? They're just berries, Emerald," she grins, "square berries."

"I'm pretty sure there's a little more to them than that," he begins, but she's already popped a pink one into her mouth, chewing happily away.

Shudder.

Sapphire had come bearing presents today, all of which consisted of a range of pokeblock flavors. They actually look very well done, meaning that she'd stolen them from her boyfriend. And despite the horror of watching her eat them, his own pokemon were enjoying the treats, so he can't really just send her away again.

Not to mention that he'd just managed to buy some time on their planned battle, after she'd managed to break through one of his barricaded windows (seems like planks and nails aren't enough after all). Despite his promise, he did still have a deadline, so he'd managed to convince her to put off the battle until his work was complete– which may take a couple of days, but hey, that's reality.

Sapphire's chewing increases in intensity as she stuffs another block into her mouth.

He pretends to gag. "If you're going to eat like that here, at least stop chewing so loud."

"Ruby said they 'boost your condition' or something like that," Her cheeks are full so her voice is muffled. Ew. "sure ya don't want to try just one?"

"I don't think he was referring to you, but whatever... no thanks."

She's either ignoring him or is just that oblivious. "Hey, this one's green like yer face thing! Ya should eat it!"

God.

Choosing not to reply this time, he taps the Enter key at his computer and gets up from his desk. Sapphire tilts her head in confusion, only to whip around as the 3D printer across the room whirrs to life, lights blinking and inner machinations spinning.

"Whoaaa!"

Sapphire scoops up her snacks and flings herself in the machine's direction, stopping right before she hit the glass. Emerald nearly shits himself.

"HEY! B-be careful around that!" he sputters, running over himself to make sure she hadn't broken anything. Fortunately, his prized machine was unharmed.

Sapphire merely pops another pokeblock into her mouth, eyes following the slow formation of the irregular object behind the glass. "What's this thingy?"

Emerald sighs. "It's… a new kind 3D printer developed by Devon Corporation. It has the ability to print components using nearly any type of material imaginable. Forget shit-grade plastic, I'm going to make my components out of steel if I want to."

"Oh yeah, yer makin' a new invention." Though she's talking to him, her eyes are transfixed on the building layers within the machine. "What's it gonna be for?"

"This… just a tool to aid pokemon capturing, as usual."

"It must be important if there's a deadline!"

"Eeyup."

"How long is the deadline anyway? 80 days? A week?"

"The 60th Annual International Pokemon Researchers' Conference." He imagines his calendar in his head. "So yeah, a little over a week away, I guess."

"Ooh, I know what that meeting is!"

He'd nearly forgotten that this wild thing was the daughter of Professor Birch. "Oh, that's right. Are you attending the Conference with your dad?"

Sapphire chews thoughtfully at his question.

"Nah, my Papa said it would be better fer me ta stay back. He said the meetin' is super borin', so he doesn't wanna drag me along with him."

"Like father like daughter, I guess."

Whatever he'd been implying flew over her head. "So are ya gonna be showin' off this gadget yer makin' at the conference?"

"I… no, not particularly. I'm not going or anything."

"Huh?"

"It's none of your business."

"Why's that?"

Deciding that she's getting a little too nosy, he nudges her away from the expensive machinery. "Why don't you go join our pokemon?"

He nods towards to the table opposite; his pokemon and her blaziken are having a civilized high tea, conversing in soft voices over a table laden with teacups and saucers (where did those come from?) and pokeblocks stacked in quaint little pyramids. Sudowoodo has always had an eye for fancy set-ups, and the rock-type looked the happiest of the bunch, humming while sipping at her tea. Despite the fact that half of them don't even have opposable thumbs or hands to begin with, they seem to be having a fine time up there.

He's not sure what to think when their pokemon are dining with utmost elegance, while their trainers basically eat shit off the floor.

"Ah, they're so cute, having a tea party like that!" Sapphire immediately gushes, hands on her cheeks, just like the first ten times she'd seen them eating together. "Super adorable!"

"Yeah, so you can eat over there. The floor's gonna be covered in crumbs at this rate."

Her face drops. "But ain't ya gonna eat with me, Emerald?"

"Why should I?" He huffs. "I told you we're not having our battle today, but you still haven't left."

Sapphire pouts again.

"Ya said it was today…"

Emerald sighs and turns back to the 3D printer, poking at the touchscreen menu, going back and forth between the different settings to make it look like he's doing something important.

"Some people have work, you know. I have more important things to do right now."

"But ya never told me why yer workin', or who yer workin' fer–"

"Do I have to tell you everything about me?" He snaps back. In a lower voice so that she can't hear, he mumbles under his breath, "It's not like we're friends."

"Okay, okay, I'll wait…"

With a little sigh, Sapphire gathers up her pokeblocks and slinks over to where their pokemon are. He gives her a sidelong glance before returning to the printer, watching it put the component together, layer by layer.

There's nothing to feel bad about. The only thing he owes her is a pokemon battle.

xxx

Any and all attempts to return to his work had been foiled, even long after that idiot had left. Emerald found himself looking over his shoulder at every little noise in fear of seeing her peering over his shoulder again, but it's always just one of his pokemon scuffling about the apartment or eating leftover pokeblocks.

He wonders if it was Crystal who had snitched on him and given his address to the fools. But she wouldn't, right? He tries to give her a call, but as usual, she doesn't pick up, probably either hard at work or fast asleep. If he's guessing right, it's mostly the former. (He opts to send an e-mail instead, since she usually checks her inbox for work-related mail.)

Of course, it's not like he wants to doubt Crystal– for all he knew, Ruby and Sapphire had resorted to shady means to finding out where he'd been holed up ever since the battle between the Pokedex Holders and Guile Hideout. But either way, he was annoyed. The only ones he wants to spend time with are his own pokemon and his tinkering projects.

He spins around in his swivel chair to gaze at the dimly lit studio. Sceptile and Sudowoodo make quiet, foreign conversation on the couch– there are times he'd wish that he was able to join in, in all honesty– though right now, all he can focus on are the mud stains on his couch fabric.

Emerald scowls at the thought of Sapphire worming her way back into his otherwise perfectly okay life tomorrow. He'd purposely chosen to lead a relatively solitary lifestyle just to avoid this kind of stress– the stress associated with people and their loudness, their expectations, their judgement. Relationships with people are, by nature, uncertain and unpredictable; thinking on Ruby and Sapphire's interactions just make it all the more clear that they're to be avoided as much as possible.

Despite the promised battle with Sapphire, it's quickly beginning to become one of those promises he desperately wishes he could back out on. He has to finish the new shooter project before the Conference, but now the battle is weighing over his mind and Sapphire won't stop breaking in because she really wants that battle for some nonsensical reason. If he can't shake her off, at the very least, he'll have to put off the battle for after this week.

"She's so damn pushy and rude." He can't help but complain out loud to the room, and his pokemon fall silent for a moment. "This was a mistake."

Sceptile clicks his tongue, and Sudowoodo titters at him, but he can ignore their commentary because he doesn't know what they're saying. It's what makes spending time with pokemon so much better, because even if they try to scold him for his behaviour or whatever, he can just ignore it.

Well, that, and the fact that he knows he can trust them. Their disapproving faces are only a result of them caring for his wellbeing a little too much.

And that's why people and pokemon are different. People have a tendency to disappoint you.

xxx

It was a bit of a last minute decision, but he's decided to spend today— and perhaps, the next few days— at the Frontier. As fond as he is of his inventions and work-in-progresses, he's always drawn back to the fast-paced nature of battles, the thrill of forming strategies within a second's interval, the grace and perfection of his pokemon's movements alluding to their utmost trust in their tactician.

He loves the challenge of warping his approach to adhere to the rules of each facility, turning handicaps to his advantage, outsmarting the computer algorithms and their awfully glitchy holographic trainers and the so-called Brains. Here, he was in his element; his greatest talent would be his ability to plan fifty steps ahead no matter the limitation. These battles are the reason why he's here.

…And maybe his house has been getting a little less cozy lately.

The audience is bigger than he remembers, not to mention louder. The Frontier has only ever become a bigger success since the last time he's been here. Despite the noise, Sceptile seems to revel in the support, raking his gaze over the loaded stands appreciatively; they'd barrelled through the ranks with relative ease, and only an hour into the tournament they're at the finals again, impressing the crowd enough to become favourites.

It's their fifth go at the Battle Dome. A winning streak. Round the stage, he can spy the remains of the confetti showers they'd received during their last four wins. Sceptile proves to be as tenacious as ever, being his main fighter for nearly all of his forty battles.

A smirk plays on his face as he turns to wave at the crowd. He just needs to beat Tucker, win the Tournament and feel satisfied for the rest of the week. He considers switching out to Dusclops for this fight— Tucker's salamence relies heavily on brute strength, so the ghost-type immunity to physical attacks would be invaluable— but he knows Sceptile has been raring to defeat salamence himself. Winning with a slight disadvantage would look way cooler anyway.

He knows he's being overconfident, but he's beaten Tucker before. Hell, he's pinned his golden Tactics Symbol to the front of his shirt (just to piss the guy off whenever he decides to show up). Emerald's beaten every Frontier challenge at least three times over, and has all the Symbols to show for it. His name is at the top of every high score list across the island; he's the trainer that every challenger wants to be.

The undefeated.

The crowd's roaring picks up exponentially as Dome Ace Tucker sweeps onto the stage with a flourish, his salamence landing with a crash in front of him. Sceptile takes on a battle stance in turn, and Emerald grins.

He's in his element. This is where he belongs.

xxx

The atmosphere of Hoenn's Battle Frontier is always festive. Year-round, the endless visiting crowds from all over the world would shuffle under a myriad of brightly colored balloons, as well as the occasional flurry of streamers and confetti. On every wall will be hanging a gaudy poster or banner of some sort, egging trainers on to challenge any one of the Frontier facilities. Street vendors at every corner sell everything from snacks to autographed merchandise, while trainers take advantage of the green landscaping to prepare their pokemon for the challenges ahead.

It's almost soothing to get lost in the enthusiastic atmosphere. Whenever he was here, Emerald would find a spot higher up so that he could take in the distant sounds and cheers, all the while surveying his kingdom (because if he's beat every challenge here, what else is this place but that?). Today, he's managed to snag the top of a small hill adorned with a conveniently shady tree to have his lunch.

"Emerald?"

He nearly drops his sandwich; so much for the alone part.

Looking up, he sees the Arena Tycoon herself, looking at him with pleasant surprise.

"Oh, uh, Greta." He swallows the rest of his mouthful. "Hi."

"It's been so long!"

The short woman gracefully takes a seat beside him, brushing a lock of blonde hair away from her face. A feeling of déjà vu kicks in, and Emerald groans internally; he'd been found, again.

"Aren't you busy being a Frontier Brain right now?" He chews his sandwich with a little less fervour.

Greta draws circles in the grass, staring at him expectantly. "I heard from Anabel who heard from Tucker that you dropped by, so I wanted to meet you. No one's seen you for a while, you know that?"

"Even I take breaks," he mutters.

"I suppose," Greta replies, "and I don't expect you to tell us about wherever you go, but just some news would be nice. Especially after, what, half a year?"

He rolls his eyes, but sighs anyway. "Fine."

She merely laughs.

"You've changed a lot, but at the same time, you haven't changed at all."

He opts to not reply, chewing his sandwich with a deliberate slowness. But Greta is a Frontier Brain, unfortunately, so she's always up for a challenge.

"So, where have you been lately?"

"Home. Making stuff."

"Is that it?"

"Yep."

"You mean you never go out?"

"I do leave the house, thank you very much." he quips. What's with people associating 'living in a house' to 'being a shut-in'? "But what's wrong with it if I prefer staying indoors? It's in the nature of my work."

Greta nods slightly, looking at his extension hands. "There's nothing wrong with it, and I know what your gadget-making involves, Emerald. I guess I just want to know if you're alright with that."

Alright with it? He's completely content making gadgets all day. It's his hobby! His craft! He couldn't possibly be unhappy. That's ridiculous. The only problems in his life right now are Sapphire and this conversation.

"I'm fine, really." After a moment, he tacks on, "Thanks for asking, though."

"Hmm… alright."

She brings herself to her feet and stretches her arms to the sky.

"Well anyway, if you don't go out very much, you could use some body training." Greta tightens the sash around her martial arts inspired uniform before doing some rapid kicks to the air. "I know you Pokedex Holders tend to be pretty robust, but it's just as important to work to keep your muscles strong. Want me to recommend you an exercise regimen?"

Emerald shakes his head, wrapping up the remains of his lunch and getting up himself. "No, there's no need. I have to go."

"…Hey, Emerald."

He looks at her.

"You're still this place's hero, you know?" She smiles gently. "You'll always be welcome at the Battle Frontier."

"I know."

"And…" Greta pauses to pull a piece of paper from her pocket and hand it to him. It's a pokenav number, written in an elegant scrawl. "We have staff dinners on weekdays. I'm sure everyone would be elated if you dropped by once or twice."

Emerald stares at the number for a few seconds in contemplation.

"I'll think about it." He eventually replies, pocketing the paper, then turning his back to her and walking off. "But thanks anyway."

He'll take extra care to avoid Greta the next time he comes by.

xxx

Sapphire looks out of place against the backdrop of a flowing crowd; then again, he's not really one to meet up with people in a crowded area, so maybe it's himself who's out of place. But when does he ever not stand out, really? Even without her freak powers, Sapphire could have spotted him in the sea of people with relative ease.

Regardless, she's blocking his path, so there's nowhere to go unless he wants his stilts kicked out from under him by the throngs of people.

"How did you know I was here?" he asks loudly over the noise of the crowd.

"Intuition," she grins, "and considerin' how much ya love this place, naturally it's my first guess!"

Emerald sighs. He'd been lenient in covering his tracks, yet again, and this day really couldn't get any more unfortunate.

"And just why are you stalking me?"

"Don'cha remember? If ya wanted to battle so much, why not fight me?" She flexes her arm, and it's kind of cute until he remembers her actual strength. "Ya didn't have to come all the way here!"

Looks like she hadn't forgotten after all. He makes a face. "Well, I forgot."

Sapphire opens her mouth, but a passerby bumps into her just then, cutting off whatever meaningless response she had prepared. With a heavy sigh, he grabs her by the wrist (how is she so skinny?) and drags her off to a less crowded area, to a nearby planting bed. The actual benches provided are all taken, so he takes a seat on the ground. She plops down beside him.

"Why do ya like Frontier challenges so much, anyway?" Sapphire asks, playing with her hair. "Ain't they kinda, well, complicated?"

He snorts. "Complicated? Yeah, maybe for commoners like you, they would."

"H-hey!"

She smacks him on the arm. He thinks he feels a bone breaking.

"YOW!"

"Ahhh! I didn't mean ta do it so hard! I'm sorry!"

They spend the next five minutes bickering while Sapphire tries to check if his arm is broken; though as loud as they are, the noise of the Frontier's endless crowds drowns it out for the most part, and he actually can't hear what he's saying most of the time. Their fighting feels like white noise; a frustration outlet, even.

Fortunately, as their arguing melts away, his arm is actually fine, save for a bruise that's bound to grow in size by tomorrow morning.

"Sorry, sorry…" Sapphire eventually starts to mutter after seeing his bruise, her gloved hands together in a pleading pose. "D-don't be mad…"

The pain has long disappeared, though Emerald realises that this is the prime opportunity to take advantage of her guilt and send her away for good. It's the perfect on-the-fly plan for a tactician like him.

Yet, for some reason, he can't do it.

"No, it's okay. It doesn't even hurt anymore." They're both surprised that he's letting it go. "You should just watch that insane strength of yours."

"I will!" Sapphire ducks her head. "I'm sorry!"

"Is this what Ruby deals with all the time?" He smirks at the thought of her mauling Ruby in the middle of a swamp.

Sapphire still looks a bit guilty, though a smile tugs at the corner of her lips. "Only when he's bein' dumb. I thought I was bein' super gentle though, because he's never acted like it hurt."

Emerald doubts that even Ruby could keep quiet if Sapphire's hits bothered him; the guy is scarily hardy, too, as Emerald had learned during their battle together all those years ago. Perhaps you just grow thicker skin after being Sapphire's punching bag for a while.

Still… he eventually concludes that he himself has low pain tolerance. Which, thinking back to Greta's training offer, could very well be true. He is a bit… small, after all.

Sapphire bites her lip. "Um…"

Oh, right. Conversation.

"So. Battle Frontier."

"Yeah," Sapphire balls her hands into fists, reinvigorated, "why are these super complicated battles so fun for ya?"

"A regular fight won't cut it for a tactician like me. Those are way too easy." He rubs his chin, trying to articulate his thoughts. "I prefer battles with rules and constraints, which is what the Frontier has."

"Well, we could put some rules and croissants on normal battles!"

"It's con– you know, never mind." Emerald sighs. "But I guess you could just handicap yourself in a normal battle and make a game out of it."

"Like a mini one-on-one Battle Frontier!"

"But you know, there's just something unique to being in a ranked competition, and being watched by an audience. Don't you agree?"

"Ohhh." She finally seems to agree. "Yeah, I can see what yer sayin'. Fightin' ta get to the top, all while hearin' a crowd cheerin' ya on, would really pump ya up!"

"Wouldn't it? Of course, having strict regulations in a more formal setting helps up the ante, too." Emerald sniffs. "We need referees to stop competing trainers from cheating, or doing weird shit like running around on all fours."

Sapphire nods for second, before registering his words.

"Wait, what?"

"The variety of challenges is fun too." He continues with a wave of a hand. "Though the Frontier facilities are pretty different from each other, they have one thing in common: constraints are applied to the battles. You can't just barge in and spam Flamethrowers till you get to the top— " Sapphire blinks, "—you need a specific strategy for each facility. Like in the Dome, you're not allowed to command your pokemon, and in the Tower you can't even use your own team."

"I know that," she begins, and he stares her down, "well, most of that, anyway..."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand." A memory crosses his mind, and he leers at her. "Not even champion Red could deal with the closed-environment battle style."

"H-huh?!"

"I might even say that beating him was a piece of cake."

As expected, Sapphire tenses up immediately, balling her hands into fists. "Hey, senior Red was recoverin' from being a statue! He was only at, like, half his normal strength!"

Foolish Red fangirls. He waves his hand dismissively; he did win, after all. "Yeah, defend him all you want. Anyway, you could've just entered the tournament itself if you wanted to fight me so much."

She deflates, looking sheepish. "I can't."

"And that is because…?"

"There's a salamence in there."

"So?"

"I don't like them!"

"…Okay."

What a random thing to dislike. Isn't she supposed to be some fearless feral warrior? What's a salamence to her? He'll never really understand this girl.

"Aaaanyway," she scoots nearer to him, and he in turn moves further away, "normal battle?"

He sighs; she's like a chatot with this insistence.

"After I'm done with my shooter." He looks to the sky. "After the Researchers' Conference. I've already told you."

Sapphire looks confused for a second, and opens her mouth to say something. But when he gives her a sharp glare, she merely nods quietly in assent. At least she's learning.

"It's... gettin' late," she says instead, "wanna go back?"

"I guess. I was leaving anyway."

"Ooh, then didja beat a lot of challenges today?"

"Nah, just one." He brings himself to his feet. "I just wanted to show up Tucker, really. Was my goal for the day."

Sapphire lights up with excitement, jumping out of her seat as well. "So ya won!"

He pulls his new golden Tactics Symbol out of his pocket to show her.

"Of course I did." A smirk plays on his face at the memory of the Dome Ace's expression at the end of the battle. "Just who do you think I am, anyway?"

She plucks the Symbol out of his hands to admire it in the light of the late afternoon sun.

"All the rules and croissants… and it's gold, too…"

A bead of sweat runs down his forehead. "Eh?"

"It's just," she looks at him in the eye, face glowing, "you're the coolest!"

The blush doesn't leave his cheeks for a good five minutes, giving Sapphire enough time to hitch a ride on his Mantine while he's distracted. While the girl blabs away about battles and scores, Emerald spends the flight home wondering why he cares about her opinion all of a sudden.

xxx

If there's something he hates more than anything else, it would be those adults– no, people– who would bend down, smile unthreateningly and talk to him as if he were a kid. Well, yes, he knows he does look younger than his age, but he doesn't see how that justifies being treated like an idiot. He'd rather wear goddamn stilts everywhere than to hear one more person ask him if he's lost.

He lets his pokemon off the hook– Sceptile doesn't like craning his neck, Sudowoodo thinks that he's her son and would act like that anyway and Dusclops never really knows what's going on. And, well, he's long accepted that his pokemon are the real extensions of himself; both literally and figuratively. Whenever Sudowoodo, in all her motherly coddling, gets him the things he can't reach from the top shelves, or when Dusclops cheerfully lifts him up a flight of stairs, he can't be upset. They've long proven that everything they do, they do out of love. It's all ever in his best interest.

But people and pokemon are different. Pokemon don't leer at him, whisper to each other and make fun of how short his arms are.

He hate, hate, hates seeing that condescending leer.

So he's more than a little agitated when Sapphire pops in out of the blue, as if she owns the place, and sees him stilt-less. She'd be smiling too, and he'd can't help but see the ghost of the look he hates there.

Though, that was mainly in the beginning; he's come to learn that she's kind of always smiling. Now he feels a bit less prickly about her visits, because as much as she talks and talks and talks, she's never once brought up the topic starting with the letter H.

(And if she ever tried to discreetly bring it up, well, he'd definitely have known.)

But he doubts she will, because she's all about pokemon battles and food and being dumb and curiously cocking her head to the side and asking him why he's taking out his platform shoes while he's inside the house.

Yet, as dumb as she is, Emerald can't help but feel self-conscious being, well, short in front of people. Especially in front of people who tower over him like she does. He doesn't think anyone can blame him, but, whatever. And he doesn't like wearing his clunky gadgets or shoes inside.

And, on the topic of things he doesn't like, it's Sapphire's intuition.

"Are ya feeling sick or somethin'?" She inquires, padding after him down the corridor. "Ya act weird whenever we're here."

He grunts, walking faster. But her strides remain greater than his, and it makes no difference. "Maybe it has something to do with you breaking into my house, every single day?"

"Hmm," she responds, unconvinced. "I dunno."

All he wants is some berry juice. "If you want to play detective, go find someone who has as much free time as you do."

"But," Sapphire begins, as they head into the kitchenette, "I really think somethin' else is botherin' ya."

"Look, I'm fine, alright?" He looks at her, one hand clutching the refrigerator door. "Thanks but, I don't need any therapy shit. You can go home now."

The girl merely chews her lip. He hopes she's finally considering leaving. But just as he's fished out a wrinkled carton of juice from the fridge, she comes up and perches herself like a little taillow on the kitchen counter.

"Ya kinda remind me of Ruby."

Emerald makes a face.

"That's kind of an offensive statement."

She doesn't seem phased (she rarely does), though she pauses before continuing. "Ya both act the same when you're feelin' bad."

"Really now." He twists open the carton, deciding to humour her for a bit. "How?"

She worries her lip slightly with one of her fangs.

"Ya won't tell me what's wrong. Like Ruby."

Back to her relationship issues. He sighs.

"There's nothing weird about that. Newsflash: neither of us owe you a talk about our feelings." He ends up snapping at her more harshly than intended. "And isn't this like the fourth day you've bothered me? Did somebody send you to interrogate me or something?"

"Huh?! No! I'm really just…"

She hunches her shoulders, suddenly mopey. He hates how it makes him feel bad.

"It's just that Ruby never tells me anythin'." She scratches the surface on the table with a finger. "I thought ya would be more different than him."

Being compared to the flamboyant narcissist once in a conversation was bad enough, but after the second time, Emerald really has to draw a line somewhere while he still has some dignity left.

"Well, good job on trying to shift the blame to me. I don't owe you shit."

Sapphire's face contorts, but instead of looking angry, she just looks like she doesn't really understand what he's saying. For all he knows– although she's the one who started it– she could have been struggling to keep up with their conversation this whole time; half of her arguments with her boyfriend seemed to devolve into her getting frustrated over not understanding the guy's vocabulary, after all.

Yet, he can't help but feel relieved at how dumb she is, because you can't be this dumb and cunningly planning to manipulate secrets out of people at the same time. She probably came pestering him with good intentions– god, this girl has no filter– but had no plan or the ability to think that deeply about it.

Emerald sighs, and lets it go.

"Alright, alright. What makes you think I'm sick, or whatever?"

Sapphire perks up, looking pleased that he's willing to return to the original topic.

"Ya try to wear your gadgets indoors sometimes, and ya look up at stuff and sigh a lot." She's so specific that he's uncomfortable again, and he regrets letting this conversation go on. "And like just now, when I saw ya without yer tall shoes on, ya looked…"

"Stupid?" He growls. He knows that he only reaches her midsection at best without his extensions, but with her sitting on the counter, she's even more condescendingly tall than usual. "Short?"

"No! No, it was yer face." Her eyes scour the ceiling as if it will give her the words she's looking for. "You looked real sad. Like, when Ruby first showed me his, um, scar. He looked kinda sad."

Emerald's mouth feels dry. He would have felt much better if he didn't know Ruby had a scar, because now he'll be hounded by guilt every time he inevitably insults the guy. He's also unsure whether Sapphire should even be deluging such information to him.

Whether she realises the gravity of what she'd just told him or not, Sapphire merely tilts her head to the side as she asks him, "Actually, that would explain everythin'. Emerald, do ya have a scar too?"

He downs a gulp of berry juice from the carton, wiping his mouth.

"….Well, I guess. Kind of."

"Really?"

"Not… a physical one."

She looks confused again, and he sighs.

"I don't… The reason…" He wonders whether finally giving her the truth would be a good idea, whether trusting her with his feelings would bite him in the ass later on, but at the thought of being 'like Ruby', the words end up tumbling out regardless.

"I just… don't like you seeing me without my shoes on."

He's never said it so bluntly; being around Sapphire must have that effect. He feels like a chunk of his soul had left his mouth along with the words, and a creeping feeling of anxiety crawls up his spine as he awaits her response.

"Huh? Why not?" Is all Sapphire says, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "There's nothin' wrong with ya not wearin' shoes in the house. I don't wear shoes in my house!"

Emerald isn't sure whether he should be exasperated or grateful that she's so dense.

"That's because you never wear shoes! As for me– don't you see this?" He gestures towards himself, almost aggressively. "I'm freakishly short without mine."

"Oh, but I know yer short."

He bites his lip. "Yeah. It's freaky."

"Eh?! I didn't mean it like that. Ya may be a squirt, but there's nothin' wrong with bein' a squirt."

He doesn't say anything in response, choosing to stare at the carton in his hands.

"It's really no problem." Sapphire presses.

"Well, yeah, not for you. You don't freak out about it."

His real height is no secret to his fellow Pokedex Holders after the Battle Frontier incident, but that didn't mean that all his internal issues had simultaneously magically disappeared. He's still petrified of what people would say about him, regardless if they're his… friends… or not. That's why he spends all his time around his pokemon.

Yet… while he had occasionally tried to wear his platform shoes under long pants around Sapphire– more to calm his own mind, than anything– he'd stopped trying as hard after the first time, when she'd seen him without and not reacted at all. She'd just treated him normally, regardless of what he wore or didn't wear.

She genuinely doesn't seem to care about his height as much as he does, so he'd grown lenient– he might even say comfortable, but they're not that close yet, so he won't.

"I don't freak out about yer height, yeah, but I think a lot of other people are the same. They won't care how ya look like." She swings her legs a little. "'Coz yer a cool guy and it don't matter."

Such generic drivel. But at the same time, he's never had this kind of talk with anyone, so it's all novel at the same time. He stares at his feet.

"You're just saying those things to make me feel better."

Sapphire makes a whining noise, looking lost. She probably doesn't have many of these types of sappy conversations, either– not with a best friend as enigmatic as Ruby, anyway. He wonders why she's trying so hard despite that.

The girl in question looks like she wants to say something more, but isn't sure how. He lifts his head to catch her eye.

"Yeah?"

"Um… I dunno how to put this in a smart way," Sapphire finally ventures, "but I feel like, if ya're cool about it, everyone else will be cool about it too. Does that make any sense?"

He hates how Sapphire, of all people, is giving him near solid advice.

"...Maybe."

And she really could be right. Maybe, all this time, he's just been making a big deal out of nothing at all.

He hangs his head.

"Good!" Sapphire chirps. "'Coz I really think there's nothin' wrong with ya."

She smiles again, then jumps off the counter, only to kneel down and wrap him up in a tight embrace. He's too tired to push her away this time.

"I promise," she says, and though they're the only ones in the room, he can't help but feel like he isn't the only one she's talking to, "ya're fine the way ya are."

xxx

Today, though it hurts his pride somewhat, he plans to pick up a readymade component from his old mentor, the Trick Master. He can't replicate nor find a blueprint for the annoyingly complex dial he wants, so relying on someone else's work is his last resort if he wants to finish the shooter on time.

The eccentric Trick Master himself isn't in Hoenn at the moment– these days, he rarely is, off learning ways to improve his craft– but he'd assured Emerald over the pokenav that every spare part or trinket he'd ever need was "in the back" and that he should help himself. Emerald can only hope that the old man had remembered to turn off all the puzzles in the Trick House, because he's not sure if he wants to deal with playing rounds of 20 Questions with a bunch of malfunctioning robots. But knowing the old man and the way his unnecessarily large gear-shaped glasses turned upon seeing people get stuck on his tricks, the puzzles were all probably still activated.

"I hope you're good at puzzles," he says as they step onto the patterned streets of Slateport City. "we'll be dealing with a lot of them."

Sapphire hums, swinging her arms as she walks. "I solved a jigsaw puzzle once, so I'll be fine!"

"Hah, sure."

"But I really did solve it!" She pauses. "With Ruby's help, but still…"

When she'd heard that he was going to Slateport, he couldn't persuade her to not follow him along no matter how hard he tried. Slateport does seem like her kind of place, though, so he can see why she was so desperate to come along: a cheery atmosphere, bustling marketplace, beautiful beaches, throngs of tourists heading for the local Contest Hall and Oceanic Museum, the distant sound of boats past the harbour coupled with the occasional chime of a bell. It's an exciting, busy city.

But surprisingly, having her tag along with him isn't so bad. When he'd stopped trying to chase her away, and just dealt with her company, the result was… alright, he supposes. Now that he's actually humoring her, Sapphire seems content. While she'll never not be her eccentric self, there's a lot less pestering and fewer loud noises coming from her, and he's almost alright with that.

And none of this has nothing to do with their conversation from yesterday, or the hug. Especially not the hug.

"Where's this 'Trick House' anyway, Emerald?"

Sapphire's hair is flying all over thanks to the ocean breeze, as well as the fact that she can't seem to stop hopping about as they walk.

"Far north," he says, "by the Cycling Road, you can't miss it. I can't believe you hadn't been there before yourself yet."

"I guess I was busy badge-collectin'!" Sapphire replies, grinning. "Ya've seen my badges, right?"

"Yeah, too many times. But whatever– I have like, three times the number of Frontier Symbols, you know."

A snort. "Gym badges are cooler, though!"

"Says who?"

"Says me!" She bounds ahead a little, past the outer walls of the marketplace, and twirls on one foot. "I can go challenge the Elite Four anytime an' become the Champion, if I wanted to. Ya can't do that with Symbols!"

He catches up to her. "I totally forgot about that. Why don't you, then?"

"It's not fun once it's over." She droops. "Senior Red and Champion Steven told me about how they're always busy bein' challenged by other trainers and stuff, or goin' on TV, or just doin' serious stuff like that. It's all they do."

"That's understandable." Emerald nods, seeing her point. It's not the kind of life she wants; he'd have probably made the same decision if he were in her shoes. "You just want to roll around in the mud all day, don't you?"

"Yeah– hey! That's not all I do!"

"…You mean you actually roll around in mud?!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"I thought that whenever you did take a bath, you'd at least do it with water." He snickers when she swats at him and misses.

"I do too bathe with water! I just like how mud feels sometimes..."

Sapphire will be Sapphire, he supposes. He shakes his head. "Fine, fine, you can have your mud baths."

She seems particularly happy, now that he's stopped heckling her over it.

"Hey, do ya wanna try it with me sometime?"

"Try what?"

"Mud–"

"No."

They pass the noisy Contest Hall, and soon enough Route 110 stretches out before them. The crowds are much thinner here, though there are still many people leaving the long pathway to enter Slateport by foot. The Route itself looks fairly uninteresting compared to the city behind them– aside from an electrike or two peering out of the tall grass, the only thing of interest is the Cycling Road to the right, and a ton of trees– but something about it must have excited Sapphire, because she bounces in excitement.

"Do ya think I can jump onto the Cycling Road from that tree?"

Before he can even ask which tree she's referring to, Sapphire had bounded off in the direction of the nearest lamp post, scaling it with terrifying ease.

"H-hey! What are you doing, you idiot?!" he tries to call after her, but she's already halfway up, and people are looking.

He freezes in place, clamping his mouth shut.

He'd never even considered that he's not the only kind of person who drew looks– those kinds of looks, anyway. When Sapphire is high up enough from the ground, the passersby show her little mercy in their hushed voices.

"Why is she always doing that? Is something wrong with her?"

"She's damaging public property. I hope her Professor dad pays for it."

"You know, she even looks like a pokemon."

"She'll embarrass the entirety of Hoenn if she goes to the International Researcher's Conference next week."

"I know she's a hero and all, but if she wasn't, she'd probably be in a facility by now."

A hundred things dawn on him at once: that she's not normal either, that she was drawing too much attention to herself, that nobody is safe from this judgement no matter what great things you've done in your life. A stone sinks to the bottom of his stomach, and his legs shake on his stilts.

It's still the same.

He can only be glad that she's too far off to hear the whispers.

By the time she comes down from the lamp post, Emerald is lost in thought. But then she looks around, and when she spots him, comes running– and he feels the stares of the crowd go from Sapphire all converge on himself, and he suddenly feels very small. More whispers, and he begins to feel like the people were seeing right through his too-long sleeves and extensions.

No.

No.

In a burst of pure panic, he turns tail and dashes in the opposite direction, diving into the sea of people for cover– leaving Sapphire to be eaten up by the stares and judgement, alone.

xxx

Despite what he'd done– taking out Mantine to fly out of Slateport and straight back home, without telling Sapphire he'd gone– the girl had shown up in his work room like clockwork the next day, trying to stack his couch pillows into the tallest tower possible. (It looks like she still has little to do besides pester him.)

Sceptile is trying to help her, but the tower topples over when he walks in. While he's glad that she doesn't seem particularly upset by his actions, she does still seem confused, so he resigns himself to at least trying to answer her questions.

"Didja get an emergency call yesterday?" she inquires, tilting her head as he shuffles in her direction. "Ya left real suddenly."

Sceptile narrows his eyes at his trainer.

"…Yeah, an emergency call." Emerald rubs his arm sheepishly, feeling exponentially worse under Sceptile's scrutiny and for the lie coming out of his mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave without telling you."

But Sapphire waves it off dismissively.

"Nah, it's fine. Ruby does that all the time too."

"Uh, really?"

"Yeah, sometimes he sees somethin' pretty and chases after it…" She looks up, getting lost in reminiscence. "Or he gets a call from some big shot at a Contest Hall…"

Emerald sighs; regardless of what he's done, at least he's still somehow less of an asshole than Ruby. He also supposes that Sapphire's indifference to what he did is partly due to the fact that she couldn't hear what everyone had been saying. It's better if she never did learn what they'd said, anyway. Even if she wasn't as sensitive as he was (he realises that he just hasn't known her long enough to know whether she is or not), he wouldn't want her hearing it.

Regardless, he still feels guilty.

"Hey, come over here." He beckons her with a finger, and leads her to the door opposite his work room.

"This room?" Sapphire sniffs the doorknob. "It's always locked, ain't it?"

"You've tried getting in there, haven't you?" He deadpans, and she gives him a sheepish grin in return.

"Just once."

Fishing a key out of his pocket, he unlocks and throws open the door to the dark room with a flourish.

"Well, you can come in now." He steps out of the way so she can enter. "Welcome to my stash."

"Wha– whoooaaah!"

Sapphire walks in and immediately cranes her neck upwards to get a full view of the columns and rows of dark, miniature drawers that line the walls of circular room, all the way up to the ceiling. The small handles gleam under the light from the doorway until he flicks the room's light on, bringing the place into full view.

Emerald likes to call this room the "Magic Room" in his head, because it's definitely the coolest room in his house; but at the same time, it's really nothing compared to the Trick Master's own architectural feats, so he usually keeps the title to himself (he'd get an earful if the guy heard him bragging over this).

"You know my E-Shooter? This room is where I keep all the dirt bullets for it." He runs a hand along the endless drawers; it had taken years to label them all accurately. "I call it… the Bullet Library."

"And these are from all over the world?" Sapphire gawps up at the highest drawers. "That's amazing!"

"Yep. I get most of the international samples through the mail, though I collected the ones from Johto and Hoenn myself."

Sapphire starts pulling the drawers open at random, peering inside each of them and giving the dirt bullets inside a sniff.

"I recognise a lot of these."

"Because you're in the Hoennian row." He waves his hand upwards. "Kanto is at the bottom, Alola's way up there, and the very top drawers are empty just in case we find something new."

He won't mention that his Kalos and Alola rows are practically empty because he hadn't had the motivation to collect samples from those regions– it's not like he'll be needing those anytime soon. Not really. He did still want those samples, though.

Meanwhile, Sapphire squeals excitedly. "Oooh, ya should just lemme know if you ever need some dirt from somewhere, and I'll get it for ya! I can even ask my Papa for help!"

He blinks, surprised. Though he really should have considered asking for help from the regional Professor, now that he thought about it.

Things would have been so much easier if… he'd stopped trying to hide.

"I'll… consider that."

Sapphire nods happily, then returns to her exploration of the room. Though he knows that this isn't the standard apology, she seems rather pleased just by being surrounded by all the smells– he idly wonders if it'd work if he used his E-Shooter on her– so it's probably okay. She hadn't even been angry with him in the first place, anyway.

"Make sure not to open too many drawers at once." he comments as she rummages through the collection. "In calming a pokemon with a dirt bullet, it's vital that the scent of the dirt doesn't get mixed up with other things for maximum effect; even if it's just air."

"Sure, okay!"

The girl goes about pushing a couple open drawers shut. She seems to be having fun, though he shouldn't be surprised about how easily amused she is by now.

Of course, he hadn't brought her in here just to smell drawers. Pushing a rolling ladder aside, his eyes briefly scan the white labels until he locates his target drawer. He tugs it open, and as he remembered, it's relatively empty. Three or four dirt bullets roll into view, bumping into each other in the process, and attracting a curious Sapphire.

"That's some nice dirt." she comments, sniffing away at the contents.

If it were anyone else, that would be sarcasm, but Ruby possessed enough satire for the both of them.

"I try my best."

He plucks one of the samples out of the drawer. Aside from the location name, its label has the collection date, as well as exact GPS coordinates of where he'd gotten it, and he can't help but smile nostalgically. He hasn't gone out collecting these things for a long time.

"Here," he tosses the small cylinder at Sapphire and she catches it reflexively. She turns it over to read the printed words on its side as well.

"Li..." she reads the label slowly, "Little... root. Hey, that's where I live!"

She starts sniffing the bullet a little harder, and her eyes light up in recognition at the scent of her hometown. It's freaky, the extent to which she can act like a pokemon, but he's kind of gotten used to her idiosyncrasies by now so it's not that bad.

"It is Littleroot!" she exclaims. "I'd know the smell of this dirt anywhere. Especially under a tree, at dawn, after a light rain. Nothin' else like it."

Her diagnosis is also terrifyingly accurate– he'd collected that sample years back, under a tree, at dawn, just after a light rain had subsided. But Emerald keeps that to himself and shrugs.

"I don't have much use for that bullet. The most fascinating pokemon from Littleroot and its surroundings is probably you, and that's saying a lot."

"Ya're givin' it ta me?"

"Yeah, I–"

He pauses midway upon the realisation of how redundant the gift is, and immediately feels stupid.

"I-I mean, I meant to give it to you, but you're already surrounded by dirt all the time in Littleroot, aren't you?" He reaches to take the bullet back, reddening with embarrassment. In his shameful haste, he hadn't thought this through. "I guess it's kind of useless."

But Sapphire pulls it away from him, pouting and clutching the bullet protectively.

"Aww, ya don't just give someone somethin' and take it back. Besides," she looks at the tiny thing in her hands with something akin to admiration, "I can take this with me whenever I travel outside Hoenn. It'll remind me of home!"

"Well… I guess so."

He's really just lucky that the girl he's talking to is probably the one other person on earth who gives a single shit about the smell of dirt.

"And it'll remind me of ya, Emerald." Sapphire smiles. "So this is the best gift ever!"

Oh. His face burns again, and he thinks it's embarrassment this time too.

"There's way better gifts than a tube of dirt, but if you like it that much… alright." he concedes, shrugging. But he's internally elated, really, at how much she appreciates it. He just knew dirt was her kind of thing.

"Oh, but don't go sniffing that in public," he warns after a brief moment of foresight, "people will think you're a junkie or something."

"Eh? What's a junkie?"

Emerald sighs. "…I just don't want you getting into trouble."

More trouble than she already does, anyway.

Sceptile chooses that moment to enter the room, his claws clicking delicately across the floor. He pauses beside Sapphire to take a whiff of the dirt bullet in her hand, and the pokemon sighs.

"Oh yeah, yer from Littleroot too, ain't ya?" Sapphire reaches up to rub Sceptile's head, and he coos happily. "Weren't ya just the naughtiest lil' treecko ever?"

Emerald regards the two curiously.

"Wait, so you guys… actually know each other?"

"Yeah! Sceptile was raised with Toro and Zuzu in my Papa's lab, and I helped sometimes. It was so long ago that I forget about it, too! Ain't that right, Sceptile?"

Sceptile makes a purring noise, swishing his tail.

"Interesting."

"He prolly knows ya better than me by now, though." She turns to Sceptile again and beams. "I wish ya were able to tell me about all the adventures ya and Emerald musta had when I wasn't lookin'!"

"We don't go around that much, trust me." Emerald smirks, closing the Littleroot drawer.

"Then we should all go on an adventure!" Sapphire blurts out almost immediately, making him jump. "Me, ya, Sceptile, all our pokemon– we can go to Alola and dig up dirt and eat snacks by the beach!"

"H-huh?!"

"Alola is really popular for vacation-in' right now! Ruby told me and showed me pictures of it. It's so pretty!"

"I know it's pretty," Emerald says, "I've seen some of it on the internet. But isn't it really far?"

"That makes it even more fun. Haven't you ever gone on a looong field trip?"

"Not that far!"

She takes his hands in hers (ungloved, dry and calloused, but warm), looking the most excited she's been ever since she first barged in. He can practically see her heart of adventure in her eyes, ever desperate to fly out into the world and see it all.

"So that settles it! Let's go around Alola in 80 days and have lots of fun! Whaddaya say?"

Fun…

It does sound fun, in all honesty. He'd been doing nothing but making machines in his workshop for the past two years. And Alola looks great; he could get a lot of good dirt samplings from there. When's the last time he's gone travelling?

Sceptile croons happily at Sapphire's idea, tail swishing.

"Ya like the idea too, don't ya Sceptile?"

But after what happened yesterday– as disappointed as he is with himself– Emerald isn't sure if he wants to be around her in front of other people. He's finally managed to be comfortable with himself (as much as he can anyway), and he's not going to let her make him relive the past. He can always just book a flight to Alola himself.

Besides, they're not even close enough to be going on trips together– right?– so why sacrifice so much just to please her?

"No, sorry," he pulls away from her, turning to the door, "I'm not interested."

xxx

Though disappointed at his refusal to follow her on her planned adventure, Sapphire hadn't gone anywhere, choosing to frolick about his house until sundown (though she'd spent a lot of that time just inhaling the scents in the Bullet Library). He, in turn, had barely been able to get any work done, knocking around meticulously placed screws every time she tripped over another cable wire. By the time she'd left, he was exhausted.

But, he'd admit, as annoying as she was, it was nice having someone to talk to for once. Especially someone who he hasn't managed to drive away yet.

After bolting the front door (he's not sure why he even bothers at this point, when Sapphire always finds a way in; maybe it's just force of habit), he's on his way to his bedroom to turn in early when a notification sound blares from his computer, back in the work room. With a grumble, he goes up to his device with the intentions of muting the noise, but pauses when he sees who the e-mail is from.

It's Ruby.

From: coordinator_ruby

Subject: It's been a while~!

Hey Rald, I know it's been awhile~ I hope I'm not asking too much of you here~

But, could you pay Sapphire a visit sometime~? She's in Littleroot as always. I'm travelling and I'll only be back in a week or so. I'm just worried that she'll break something while I'm away.

I'll get you two something nice~!

See you~~!

Love,

Ruby

He finds himself pressing his lips at every tilde.

Ruby had probably pissed off Sapphire real badly just before he left, to push him as far as sending someone else to look after her. Emerald's not sure why the guy hadn't just stayed back long enough in Hoenn to clear the air between them first, especially if it worried him to the point of asking someone (who he hadn't met in two years!) to check in on his girlfriend for him.

Though considering what he knew– both about Ruby and Sapphire, and about their relationship– he isn't all too surprised that the asshole just fled the region instead of facing the issue head-on.

"And how did this fuck get my e-mail address?" Emerald hisses under his breath.

Whoever released this information is probably the same person who told Sapphire where he lived. He can only hope that they didn't start putting his pokenav number up on billboards across the region next. (Of course, he knows that won't happen, because he's not dumb and the culprit is almost definitely someone he knows, trying to pull him out of his hermit life. He'll give them points for effort, at least.)

Emerald runs his hand down his face, leaning back in his chair. He's tempted to ignore Ruby's message, feeling tired and grumpy after having to deal with Sapphire all day. Getting involved in their mess of a relationship would serve only to irritate him further.

But for some reason, he can't bring himself to just close the window or leave the computer. With a sigh, he quickly types up a response.

hey

your gf is now wrecking my house instead of urs, congrats on ur holiday

also i may have given her drugs

cheers

(ps i want a pokeradar and a lot of good stuff as compensation)

emerald

xxx

Another day, another break in.

If there's one thing he can give Sapphire credit for, it's that she's never entered the house without him knowing; otherwise, she'd run up to him immediately in order to announce her presence. Maybe that's as far as manners will go for the rowdy girl, but he supposes that it's something, at least.

"Thanks for not bringing mud in today," he says sarcastically, noting the dry leaves covering her body as she stands in front of him, "but try leaving the foliage behind, next time."

Sapphire looks quite pleased with herself for making less of a mess than usual.

"Roger!"

She pulls a new case of pokeblocks out of her bag, and plops herself onto the middle of the floor to begin snacking, because she likely has nothing better to do. Almost immediately, Sceptile, Dusclops and Sudowoodo surround the girl, and she giggles as she hands them all their favorite flavors (because apparently she's memorised them by now).

Emerald takes a seat on the nearby couch with two components of his shooter and a hex key. He's here instead of at his desk like usual because this stage of the assembly doesn't require a lot of space, the couch is more comfortable, and there's no risk of dropping screws everywhere when he isn't using any. It has nothing to do with the fact that he kind of feels like talking to Sapphire for some reason.

"Hey, don't you like, live in Littleroot?" He asks, inspecting the print job of one of the component pieces. "Do you fly your poor tropius up to Lilycove every single day, just to eat pokemon food in my living room?"

"Ehh?" Sapphire swallows her pokeblock. "Naw, I just camp around! It's no big deal."

"…Camp? Where?"

"Outside yer house, naturally!"

"WHAT?!"

Oh lord.

Sceptile merely nods silently at their words, chewing away at bitter pokeblocks, and Emerald gives his pokemon an exasperated look– there's no way that his pokemon wouldn't have noticed Sapphire toughing it out in the forest outside his place. They'd just decided to not tell him. He wonders if she'd ever tried to peer in through his windows at night.

Sapphire's just arrived and he's already tired. "So that's why you're always so early…"

"Mmhmm. I like sleepin' in trees, so I decided, 'why not'?"

She pops another pokeblock into her mouth.

"Why not indeed…"

They sit in a relatively comfortable silence after that, him putting together his shooter and Sapphire eating pokemon food with her fellow pokemon. Emerald wonders whether this is what friendship is, because it's oddly similar to how he hangs out with his pokemon– they don't have much to talk about, even if they could somehow converse, so they'd end up just sitting around in the same room and doing their own thing. He'd thought that hanging out with someone he could actually talk to meant endless talking, but even the noisy, noisy Sapphire had fallen quiet for the moment. And yet, she seems comfortable just being there. With him.

There in his spacious work room, there aren't any random strangers there to whisper to each other about the odd combination of a midget and a feral girl spending time together, no annoying Frontier Brains trying to get him to change the way he lives, no crippling silence falling over him whenever he realises that he wants to talk to somebody but can't.

This is alright, he supposes.

"One time when I was younger, I fell outta this tree and broke both my legs," Sapphire says out of the blue, and Sudowoodo chokes on her food.

Well, mostly alright, anyway.

xxx

Crystal had forwarded him an e-mail this morning (at around 3am!) with a vague "I think you'll like this!" attached. Whenever she does that, the attached file is usually a draft blueprint for a cool device being developed by one of Professor Oak's many high-end beneficiaries. A privilege of being a registered Pokedex holder was Oak letting them get early access to as many of these research files as he wanted, and Emerald takes full advantage of that.

The thought of having a new project to mess around with in the future was uplifting, so the message (coupled the fact that it was from Crystal) was a welcome burst of positivity in an otherwise very… confusing week.

After replying to her with a "thanks" and a "go get some rest already", he opens his inbox only to find not one, but a dozen new mails, and none of them are from Ruby.

Seeing the sender's name and titles alone send a foreboding chill down his spine.

6:03AM Gold guys u jelly

6:02AM Gold just chillin w/o you

5:58AM Gold having fun

...

"What the hell..." Crystal's blueprint is the most recent message, sitting innocently on top of the pile of suspicious mails from Gold; yet, the temptation to open the latter first is enormous.

Sapphire wanders over at the sound of him cursing.

"Hey, is that… senior Gold?"

"Unfortunately." Emerald scowls. "Think he got my new address from Crys, now he's spamming me with mail."

"But don't ya wanna read what he said?"

"No."

"But when's the last time ya talked to him?" Sapphire hums. "I haven't talked ta Senior Gold in a while myself. Could ya tell him I said 'hi'?"

"I'm not replying to these."

She whines. It's becoming a bad habit of hers whenever he tries to deny her something.

"But can't ya at least read it? I wanna know what he's been up ta lately!"

Emerald can't deny his own curiosity either, though, so with a sigh he opens up the first message in the string of spam.

From: newbarkbooty69

Subject: johto is ballin

haaàaaaay

hey u guys, just mailin to say that im havin the time of my LIFE!

like, here, in new bark

look at these pics

sux that silver is lame like, not having any goddamn means of communication, its like, illegal in this day and age u know

also can some1 get crys to unblock me somehow

[Open Attachment]

"Nope," Emerald checks all of Gold's mails and dumps them in the Trash folder.

Sapphire squeaks. "Ehh? Wait, what did the mail say? I saw senior Silver's name!"

"Gold just wants some attention," Emerald rolls his eyes, imagining the guy suddenly growing antsy in his house full of pokemon and shooting out all these mails out of desperation, "and why do you keep pointing out names?"

"'Cuz I can't read anythin' else."

"WHAT?!"

"What?"

He really wonders whether Professor Birch should get in trouble for how Sapphire turned out, sometimes.

"You– you know what, I won't ask." Shaking his head, he turns back to his inbox. "Anyway, I don't like the looks of Gold's attachments. They're probably loaded with all kinds of viruses, just like him."

Sapphire scratches her head. "Um, what does that mean?"

She probably isn't any more computer literate than she is literate in general, he realises.

"Viruses. Gold's gonna screw up my computer." he states simply.

It's all hyperbole, obviously; there's no way Gold is tech-savvy enough to stick viruses to his e-mails. But if there's anything Gold is, he's a dick. Emerald probably won't ever forgive him.

Even though he'd never really done anything wrong.

"Uh, okay." Sapphire says uncertainly.

"I'm guessing you don't really use e-mails a lot." Emerald shakes his head. "Gold sends everybody this kind of stuff every once in a while."

"Yeah, I don't. It's confusin' enough tryin' ta make calls with my pokenav." She pulls out the device in question from her pocket. It's terribly scratched all over, splotched with hardened mud and who knows what else.

"I'd have trouble, too, if my pokenav was that dirty. I'm surprised it even still works."

Sapphire pouts. "I just dunno how to clean it without breakin' it."

"Pokenavs are usually waterproof, though. They're not like your normal devices."

"But how am I supposed ta know that?"

"By just reading the user's manual that comes with it?"

"…"

"…Oh, right."

Sighing, he holds his hand out to her.

"Then I'll clean it for you."

"Eh? Really?"

"It's the easiest thing in the world for me." His own gadgets tend to get worn pretty quickly with frequent use, so polishing them up is second nature to him by now. "It's no problem."

"Aww, thank you Emerald! That's so nice of ya!" Sapphire squeals, placing her ratty old pokedex in his hand.

"Yeah, yeah."

Right then, in yet another unsolicited display of affection, the girl leans forward to nuzzle his cheek with hers. It's the most horrible thing to ever happen to him, and he falls off his chair in shock.

"H-HEY!"

"What's wrong?!" Sapphire dives to pick him back up, stunned, and looks even more bewildered when she sees his face. "Emerald?"

His cheeks are on fire.

xxx

As hard as he tries, he can no longer prove that Sapphire is out to make fun of him and ruin his life. The way she looks at him is her redemption– it resembles how she looks at Ruby, kind of, that pathetic pining look that makes him want to smack the both of them.

No jabs at his height or his lonely lifestyle. She's as innocuous and stupid as she presents herself to be.

She just... wants to hang out with him.

Probably.

He forgets to close the windows a lot these days.

xxx

Even if Sapphire had managed to force herself into his life, and even if he didn't mind as much anymore, that didn't change the fact that he had a custom gun to finish building. He'd had to rearrange his schedule for the week to make up for lost time, and though he'll have to crunch things a bit, he's still pretty confident that he can finish the production by the day before the Conference.

For today, he'd planned to quickly get some quick coding work for Professor Oak out of the way before returning to his little project. He'd also thought that if he spent some time doing work on the computer for a few hours, Sapphire would get the message and go play with her pokemon or something while he was busy. He was wrong.

"What do all those words do? What language is it? Are ya writin' a secret letter ta senior Crystal?"

His fingers hover over the keyboard as he quickly formulates a simple explanation. "It's called Arbok. It's a coding language. You design computery stuff with it."

"But Arbok's a pokemon."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's just the name. Sapphires are jewels, so what the hell are you?"

The girl scrunches up her nose at her name being used as an example. For a second, he's afraid that she might take him literally and descend into an existential crisis, but fortunately for him she can't possibly think that deeply.

"Okay, yea, I got it." Sapphire beams, and she obviously doesn't get it.

Rolling his eyes, Emerald returns to his coding– for a second.

"Can ya make a computer by talkin' Arbok?"

"You... don't talk coding language, you type it."

"Whoa…"

As irritating as it is, nobody but Crystal or Green had ever shown real interest in his hobby, and he finds that he likes talking about it. Even to a computer dumb person. "And this kinda coding is only for making stuff inside computers, not, computers themselves."

"Oh." She blinks. "What?"

So much about the 'explaining his hobby' thing.

"Are you hungry or something?" He jabs a thumb towards the corridor. "There's probably something in the fridge."

His fridge is actually near empty after last night's dinner with his pokemon, but she takes the bait. Sapphire bounces upright. "Actually, yeah! Food! I'll get us somethin' ta eat!"

He smirks as she bounds away. Idiot.

Sceptile walks into the workroom just as Sapphire flies out, and the grass-type gives his trainer a look that's a mix of confusion and mild amusement.

"I have to get my work done somehow." Emerald explains, stretching his fingers.

Sceptile stares at him for a little bit, before turning away with a smile.

xxx

A beep from his e-mail notifications. It's Ruby this time.

Rald,

what drugs.

He finds himself chuckling.

only the best dope around, son

xxx

After Sapphire had left for the day, he makes himself comfortable in his bed and whips out his own pokenav. Picking out Crystal's name from his contacts list, he starts the call.

She always takes a long time to pick up. He spends 15 seconds just sitting there, staring at the pokenav on his mattress, waiting for any kind of response. Sceptile sits beside him, looking doubtful.

And soon, he hears it– except it's just her voicemail again, the same old message he's heard time and time again. He lets it play out until the call ends on its own.

Sceptile chirps questioningly.

"Nah, it's whatever." Emerald tosses his pokenav onto his bedside table, stretching his arms over head in what he hopes is a show of nonchalance. "I was just giving it a try."

xxx

When calls fall through, at the very least, Emerald knows that Crystal communicates primarily through e-mail. Even then, when he sees that Crystal had replied to his mail this morning, his heart leaps into his throat.

From: crystalpyon

Subject: Re: How's the Conference prep going?

Yeah, it's pretty nervewracking!

I know I've helped Professor Oak out with his presentations at the Researchers' Conference before, but I've never taken the stage alone. I mean, I'm not going to back out or anything, but I'm still really nervous.

Of course, I'm going to do my best and hope it all goes well. Everyone wanted me to go up there because they believed in my qualifications, so I can't disappoint them. Actually, I might bring one of my pokemon up on stage with me. I'd feel less alone, and maybe everyone will like that! Maybe I should also bring a few physical proof-of-concepts of the pokemon capturing tools the Professor's lab is putting together. Wouldn't that be a fun show?

Anyway, how have you been, Emerald? You never really give me the details. Have you been out with any friends recently?

– Crystal

He leans back in his chair, languidly rereading random parts of the mail and smiling. Responses from Crystal (real, longer-than-a-sentence ones anyway) tend to be few and far in between, especially during busy times like these; being the primary assistant to Professor Oak himself (Senior Green is usually running his Gym), Crystal always has people tugging her in every direction, asking for advice or an interview or whatever.

In retrospect, her life is akin to the lifestyle Sapphire would give up the League Championships just to avoid. He doubts Crystal likes being overwhelmed with all the work and pressure either, but the perks of the job– travelling and capturing new pokemon, working on the international pokedex, giving talks to children everywhere– apparently outweigh the bad, because she's still powering on.

Regardless, as busy as Crystal is, he thrives in the knowledge that when it comes down to the wire and she has to shortlist who to talk to, she'd respond to him first.

…After all her work e-mails, anyway.

Probably.

Shaking his head, he stretches out his fingers, preparing to type up a reply when he hears an unfortunately familiar set of footsteps trampling down the stairs. Before he has the time to turn around, Sapphire's behind his chair.

"Heywatchadoin'?"

He slams a hand against the power button and the computer screen blacks out.

"Nothing at all!" Hopping out of his seat, he marches past Sapphire over to a nearby cabinet and begins pulling out a bunch of tools at random. "I was just getting to work!"

The girl stares at him confusedly for a moment, but the expression leaves as soon as it appears. He sighs internally; she hadn't seen the mail.

"Well, alright!" Sapphire smiles, ever blissfully unaware. "What are we doin' today?"

xxx

"Sortin' stuff?"

The girl looks around at the scattered tools and scrap metal and cardboard boxes strewn about the carpet with a sad look. "Ain't this borin'?"

Emerald shakes his head in exasperation. He'd put off replying to Crystal till tonight, just to make sure Sapphire never gets to see what he's writing– he knows that she can't read, but she can read names and it's just kind of embarrassing, the idea of writing to Crystal in front of someone else– but now the girl is wasting his time for real.

"Not everything I do involves shiny machines or field trips. Cleaning up is necessary to being a functional adult." He'd supposed that he'd make use of Sapphire as labor to finally get this out of the way. His storage room has been a mess for a good year because he'd been procrastinating on tidying it up.

"Still borin'."

"I'm simply anguished that you think so."

Sapphire rocks on her heels for a moment, looking like she wants to say something. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she grins mischievously.

"Hey, yanno what we do when we're bored?"

What she and Ruby did? "Uh, what?"

"We wrestle!"

"Wha–"

xxx

They somehow end up on the floor in the middle of the room, sitting back-to-back as a result of Sapphire's continuous attempts to playfully suplex him. ("Rono thinks it's fun, though!") Though, in reality, Sapphire's definition of 'wrestling' had turned out to be more along the lines of 'tussling around on the floor until something breaks', which in this case had been Sapphire's recently cleaned pokenav. Ironically, she'd done it herself, missing when she'd tried to jump at him and landing on the pocket with the device inside. It's a wonder she hadn't seriously injured herself, with how much damage the thing took.

"I never really used it all that much anyway." Sapphire had said as she swept up the bits, not looking very regretful. They'd stopped the playfight afterwards, after Emerald had noticed just how tired he was, and here they are.

And really, his entire body aches, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't have fun at all. While Sapphire might be strong (or maybe just have a lot of pent up aggression) and a tendency to unintentionally play rough, he isn't all that different in the end. He'll never be able to beat up punching bags along with the huge brutes at the gym, or get insanely muscular or anything, but that doesn't mean he can't pretend to be powerful. He'd managed to get a few kicks to Sapphire's stomach, and she hadn't seemed fazed at all, and since that was as lethal as his physical attacks could get he ended up not feeling bad about it.

That pokemon roleplay-fighting shit is definitely the weirdest thing he's ever done, but it's not the worst. He'd throw himself off of the Bell Tower before he tells anyone about it, though.

He wonders what it means if Sapphire had decided to play pokemon with him, like she apparently did with Ruby (he still really thinks there's an innuendo there) and her own pokemon. She's always been over-friendly, but he doubts she goes out of her way to bite a total stranger in the forearm. Maybe it's how she shows deeper affection, or something.

Right now, he's polishing his newly completed gun, even though he'd already polished it not long can't help it; he likes his inventions when they shine. Meanwhile, Sapphire's supposed to be sorting out his box of nuts and bolts, but from the lack of movement he thinks she's eating again or something.

He elbows her and she grunts. "If you're not gonna be helpful, you can still go back to Ruby and mess up his shit."

"Ruby's in Sinnoh," Sapphire mumbles like she's half-asleep, and that's probably the case since she let slip such interesting information.

He seizes the opportunity. "Sinnoh?"

"Fer contests." The words sound ever-so-slightly bitter, which is odd coming from Sapphire's mouth. "As usual."

"And you stayed back to break into my house."

"Well, no," she pauses, "he asked me if I wanted ta go, but I didn't want ta get in their way..."

"'Their'?"

Sapphire makes a soft growling noise.

"Some… girl. He took her to Sinnoh with him."

Ruby going off on a vacation with another girl sounds scummy as heck, but for all he knows, Sapphire's just took everything the wrong way and got jealous. It's so clear-cut that it's embarrassing, but what makes Emerald angry isn't Sapphire's stupidity or her relationship drama.

He'd been under the impression that Sapphire was here to help him, however unsuccessfully. That she'd come here to drag him out of the house and out of his head- like a friend would try to do. And maybe it had been working a little. Maybe he'd been feeling happier than he'd been in years because he suddenly had another person to talk to, someone who could put up with his abrasive personality and not fault him for it.

But in reality...

"So you were feeling lonely, huh."

Silence. "Kinda, yeah."

His polishing cloth gets caught in the trigger of his gun. It's too late once he realises it, because the part has already broken off, the tiny hook-like piece clattering to the floor. Sapphire jumps a bit at the sound, and they both sit there, staring at the broken trigger in silence.

In a sudden bout of rage, he dumps the rest of the gun next to it, standing abruptly, sending Sapphire tumbling onto her back with a squeak at the loss of support.

"You know, sometimes," maybe he's just tired, but as he looks down at her, his words end up coming out sounding a bit scathing, "you gotta learn how to deal with being alone. Alone."

Sapphire looks bewildered. "Emerald, what're ya sayin'?"

"That I'm not your fucking rebound, and that you should leave. Now."

"E-eh? What's a reb–"

"Do I have to repeat myself?!"

The girl shrinks. With him standing and her on the floor, he's actually taller than her for once. Looking down at her and her confused, hurt eyes.

Towering.

"Ya want me ta go?" Her voice is smaller than he's ever heard it. He scoffs.

"Yeah." He turns away. "And for your information, I don't like being used."

Emerald collects the last few bolts and carries his box down the corridor, setting it down inside the closet; when he returns, there's only an angry Sceptile left in the room.

His pokemon smacks him upside the head, and he cusses.

"What?!"

xxx

This isn't very funny Rald...

Wi- F i is terrible in Snowpoint so tell me straight.

Did you really give Sapphire drugs or not?

Emerald doesn't feel like being too much of a jerk anymore.

why dont you talk to her yourself?

she has a lot to tell you.

her pokenav is broken, so mine is 003-254-010

xxx

Sapphire doesn't come the next day, or the next, or the day after. He hadn't really expected her to. Sceptile's cross with him, spending most of his time outside with the rest of his team. They have picnics and eat the leftover pokeblocks that the missing trainer had brought them before.

Emerald's a little concerned that Ruby will call and ask a million questions about his drugs prank, only to find out that Sapphire's not around. He's not even sure why he gave Ruby his number, when it was obvious from the moment Emerald sent her away that Sapphire would never come back again. But it's not like any of that matters, because his pokenav never rings.

Maybe that's a good thing; he hasn't given his number to anyone for the past few years, and he was beginning to regret giving it to Ruby anyway. Hell, if he was lucky, he'd never get a message from the guy again, be it e-mail or otherwise. He doesn't care about Ruby, he doesn't care about Ruby's relationship drama, and he sure as hell doesn't care about Ruby's girlfriend either.

He delves into the Trash folder and reads Gold's obscene e-cards a few times between his work (he has to admit that they're pretty hilarious, and that he is no more mature than his philandering jackass of a senior), and he's only greeted by Crystal's voice mail whenever he calls.

Every evening, he closes the windows again.

xxx

It's the midde of the night, and he finds himself lying awake in bed once again; but these days, it's not because of Dusclops' snores.

His stilts, extension hands, platform shoes- and all the other gadgets he'd used to try and be someone else- lay in a heap in the corner of the room, leaving nothing but a small little boy staring at the ceiling. It's when he's without these things, when he's not juggling appearances for once, that he can finally see everything with most clarity; unfortunately for him, said clarity is rarely ever pleasant.

A heavy sigh escapes his throat.

Moping around at his desk for days on end had resulted in him losing track of time. The Pokemon Researchers' Conference was likely long over, though; Crystal had yet to mail back, but even if she had, he's not sure if he'd be able to bring himself to read it. Perhaps it's because, if she'd learned about what he'd done, she'd have given him a good kick. He's been kicking himself in the meantime.

Because as betrayed as he'd felt, Sapphire didn't deserve that. He should've at least listened her out, because he knows she wouldn't purposefully try to lead him on.

"It's just me, isn't it?" Emerald asks aloud. Dusclops continues to snore away.

He'd been so worried about being let down by other people that he hadn't even considered that he had the potential to do the same. He's no better than Ruby or Sapphire combined.

Emerald scowls. Sapphire has way more friends than he does, though, so why is he even worrying about her? Like he'd told her himself, she wouldn't know the loneliness he lives with. She's nothing like him. She's gotten every badge, saved Hoenn twice and travelled the entire region. She undoubtedly has lots of other people to go cry about her boyfriend to, other couches to stain with mud and litter with leaves. Right?

Groaning in frustration, he covers his eyes with his forearm, wishing the world to go away. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't ignore the severity of what he did.

If Sapphire never came back… for once, he'd understand her completely.

xxx

He's not really in the mood to answer Gold, but of course, the one person messaging him right now is that very asshole.

yo raldo

does crys have a fave popcorn flavor or sth like that

He frowns deeply at the implications.

yeah, not telling you.

The reply is quicker than expected:

pls

And so is his own:

no.

stop mailing me.

and stop chasing crystal.

xxx

On the fourth morning after he pulled that jackass move, Emerald is walking to the kitchen for a late drink of water when he hears squeaking from the right side of the corridor. He peeks into his workroom to find Sapphire crouching forlornly in his desk chair, spinning in slow circles as she stares at nothing.

"...Sapphire?"

At the sound of his voice, she starts, only to fall out of his chair with a thud and a crash as the chair comes down with her. A plethora of berries and pokeblocks tumble out of her bag in the fall, spreading out across the floor. Shocked and baffled, he runs up to her and kneels to help her up. "Hey-"

"I'm sorry!" Sapphire suddenly blurts out, pushing herself up with her arms and looking desperately into his eyes. Her wild caramel locks are everywhere, making her look all the more frazzled. "I'm really sorry Emerald please let me explain!"

He runs a hand down his cheek. While he's glad she hasn't decided to completely dissociate from his existence (very, very glad) it's four in the morning, and Emerald isn't a four in the morning person. "Come again?"

"Sorry, I just realised why ya were so angry! I never told ya why I visited ya in the first place!" Sapphire's all wild hand gestures and frantic explanations, and he can barely keep up. How is she so hyper this early? "So I'll tell ya everythin'! Okay, first, Ruby said he wanted to go to Sinnoh, and then, uh, we fought, and–"

"Okay, okay, hold up, Sapphire."

She clamps her mouth shut, watching him nervously. Seeing her again, after what had seemed like an eternity of separation, leaves him with an odd feeling in his chest, and his words die on his tongue. This results in him just staring at her mutely for a couple seconds, until she shifts uncomfortably.

"If ya want me ta leave again, I-I'll just go..."

"Uh, wait!" He shakes his head in an attempt to reorder his muddled thoughts and sleep-addled brain. "I'm just tired, sorry. Wait, why are you even here? It's like, four AM."

"I just couldn't hold it in anymore! I knew ya were upset and didn't wanna see me, but I also had ta try and make it up ta ya, so I just waited a while for ya ta cool off and I brought berries and pokeblocks and please forgive me!" Sapphire ends her rapid explanation with a slight wheeze.

"It's okay, Sapphire." He reluctantly reaches out to pat her hand awkwardly. "I'm not mad, so calm down."

The girl deflates, bringing herself to sit properly in front of him on the floor. She's still taller than him like this, and she hunches over to look at him. But for once, it's a comforting observation. He's not sure if he'll be able to admit it out loud, but... he's missed her.

But even then, he's not sure if he's strong enough to apologise first. Instead, Emerald offers her what he hopes is a friendly smile.

"So... let's start did you want to talk about?"

"Well..." Sapphire gnaws on her lip. So anxious. "I just wanted ta... explain myself to ya. Even if my explanation still makes ya mad, I just wanted ta clear things up."

Emerald wishes he had more control of the situation, but for once, he can't come up with a plan in time. Swallowing lightly, he nods for her to carry the conversation while he struggles to find words of his own. Even now, he's relying on her.

"Sure, uh, you can tell me everything."

She smiles gratefully. "Okay. Thanks Emerald."

His heart is pounding with fear- fear that he'll mess up again, that he'll slip on this thin ice, and that she'll leave for real. Don't mess this up, don't mess this up...

"So, you fought with Ruby, and he left to Sinnoh without you?" He draws his knees up to his chest. "What did you guys even fight about?"

"Um... Ruby said something dumb." She says the last part quietly.

Okay, so maybe she won't be divulging all the details right now.

"Well, that's not much of a surprise."

Sapphire sniffs. "Anyway, I was mad so I told him to go alone."

"Okay."

"I was really mad that time, okay? Then he said he was gonna ask this girl to go with him and I was like I'll go hang out with Emerald instead! And... wait…"

She pauses her rant as if she's just realised something, looking sheepish again. It seems like she's been holding it in for a while. "I'm sorry. I thought I'd apologize to ya by tellin' ya about what happened with me, but that's not really workin' out..."

Sapphire's usually more direct than this. He wonders if she talks this way when flustered, or if she thought that mimicking his habit of beating around the bush would appease him more easily. Funnily enough, it's times like these that Emerald thinks her bluntness would be most welcome.

"It's fine." He plays with his sleeve. "Just tell it to me straight."

She dips her head. "I'm just here ta say, yeah. Me comin' in and stayin' with ya... kinda was just ta show Ruby that I was fine without 'im. And that was wrong of me."

"Huh."

"But that was just in the beginnin'– coz I didn't expect ya to actually let me hang out with ya, Emerald!" She lifts her head now, smiling a little. "And I was so happy. It's been years since I'd last spent time with ya. I even forgot all about Ruby for a while. So... thank ya fer that."

He remains quiet, mulling over her words.

"And... I get why yer angry. Ya got every right ta be. I wouldn't have visited ya if I didn't get into that fight with Ruby, that's true." Sapphire looks at him guiltily. "Maybe I did see ya as a sorta replacement for him."

She suddenly puts her hands together, and bowing her head sheepishly.

"I was a jerk, an' I'm really sorry, Emerald!"

This feels... wrong.

"No..."

Sapphire peers upwards, looking fearful for a moment.

"I mean... I've been a jerk, too." Emerald finally admits. At Sapphire's confused look, he forces himself to continue. "I always… I was always a coward. I couldn't deal with people because I was so scared of what they'd think of me."

He stares at his hands. "And that's why... I pushed you and Ruby away. In fact, I pushed everyone away. And then I'd go and blame them for my problems- like I did to you."

"Emerald..."

She's confessed everything to him, so it's only fair that he does the same.

"So maybe you did come to me because you had that fight with Ruby." His eyes are suddenly burning. "But of course you did. You were feeling hurt, so you looked for help from someone you thought was your friend. But being the great friend I am, I just made it all about me. Again."

The realization dawns on him as the words leave his mouth; if there was anyone who should be apologizing, it should be him, not her. He knew Sapphire was in a relationship that probably hurt her more than it did anything else. He knew that in reality, she was probably as lonely as he was. He knew that he was selfish, but instead of acknowledging it, he'd projected it onto her and everyone else-

"It's okay, Emerald."

He looks up to see her smiling gently. It's so hard to take her seriously with those accursed fangs; she just ends up looking so dumb and cutesy.

"What do you mean...?"

"I know ya never avoided us 'coz ya actually hated us or anythin'." Sapphire rubs her arm. "I don't think Ruby or senior Crystal or anyone else holds that against ya either. We jus' knew ya were kinda shy, so we left ya alone since ya were more comfortable that way... but we shouldn't have left ya to the point that ya felt really lonely."

Everything feels so raw. It's as if his heart had been taken out and dissected right in front of the both of them. But as much as it pains him, he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel an overwhelming sense of relief. The relief of finally being to express his deepest insecurities, and the relief that comes after learning the truth.

Emerald chuckles, looking off to the side.

"I guess we cancel each other out. We both messed up."

His focus is redirected back to Sapphire when she gives him a playful punch to the shoulder, in an attempt to lighten the mood. Yep, that's going to bruise. But he remains tight-lipped about it after seeing her apprehensive eyes; she's trying so hard to make up with him, to get things back to the way they were. And he wants the same thing.

"Everyone makes dumb mistakes sometimes, don't they?" Sapphire looks at him almost pleadingly. "Includin' us."

"Yeah."

"But even if yer mad at me... I still wanna be yer friend."

Her frankness still manages to catch him off guard. It's his turn to gaze at her face searchingly.

"M-me too. I…" He's stuttering, oh lord, will this make him sound less genuine? "…me too. Can we still be friends?"

As gracious as ever, Sapphire beams at him, taking his hands into her own. They're as warm as he remembered, but suddenly the fire in his cheeks has them beat.

"Don't be silly, Emerald. We'll always be friends!"

It's everything he's always wanted to hear. Before his eyes start leaking, he squeezes them shut.

"Thanks, Sapphire."

Sapphire makes a happy sort of noise, and before he knows it he's being pulled into yet another powerful hug, her arms encirling him and wrapping around his back. This time, he returns it, winding his own arms around her midsection. She's so incredibly warm, and so is he, inside and out.

"We good now?" she ventures after a moment.

"Yeah... I'd say so."

She coos, and nuzzles the top of his head with her chin. His face spontaneously combusts.

"I've been so worried about ya, ya know." Sapphire admits. "I couldn't even go back to Lilycove until I apologized, or at least made sure ya weren't all miserable because of me."

He chuckles a bit; he really had been miserable, but it was mostly because he was angry at himself. "So I'm guessing you've been camping out in the trees nearby until now?"

"Ehe, yep."

To think that this misunderstanding could have been solved so much sooner if either of them had just made a move. With the tense part over, Emerald can only see how dumb they've been.

"Well, for the record, I was worried about you too." He pats her back. "I mean... I really shouldn't have shouted at you. You didn't deserve that."

"It's okay, I wasn't mad about that. And it's over now, anyway."

"Yeah."

Sapphire doesn't seem like she intends to end the embrace anytime soon, too comfortable in the air of relief to , Emerald'sback aches, his arms are growing stiff, and he's still a bit parched because he hadn't been able to get the glass of water he'd woken up for. But for once, he's not going to complain.

His friend hasn't given up on him.

xxx

Sapphire doesn't snore as bad as he'd thought she would– her hitched breaths are soft, actually, so he'd abandoned his search for earbuds after getting his glass of water. After making up, they'd both realised that it was five in the morning, so he let her get comfortable on his couch while he returned to bed. He hadn't expected her to fall asleep so quickly, though. Had the past couple nights been as sleepless for her as they had for him?

The early morning is cool. He'd gone up to get Sapphire a blanket, but when he returned downstairs, he'd found that she's already been swaddled with no fewer than five pillows and blankets. The berries and pokeblocks that had laid strewn across the workroom floor have been picked up and arranged on a nearby table. Definitely the work of Sudowoodo. He half-heartedly wonders if Sudowoodo had overheard their earlier conversation.

Sapphire fidgets. Apparently she talks in her sleep. She mumbles Ruby's name once before gripping a pillow and rolling over, back facing him.

A quiet chirping noise comes from behind him. Sceptile blinks tiredly at him, swishing his leafy tail.

"Oh, sorry. Did we wake you, Sceptile?"

The grass-type shakes his head. He spares the girl on the couch a glance, then looks back at Emerald.

"Yeah, she's sleeping over." He stretches his arms over his head. "I'll be hitting the sack now myself, don't worry."

Nodding, the pokemon turns and walks back down the corridor, claws clicking against tile.

There really is a difference, Emerald realises, between friends you can talk with and friends you can't. He hasn't carried conversations for as long as he has before Sapphire barged in; all his talking had been rather one-sided with his pokemon, as hard as they try to interact with him. Like just now, for instance.

Sparing Sapphire a final look, watching the rise and fall of her ribcage as she dozes, he thinks about how much he really owes her. He'll have to do something for her sometime. Something she'll really like. It can't be too hard, considering how easily pleased she is.

An idea comes to mind, and he smiles.

Maybe...

xxx

Toro puffs out her chest, wrists ablaze as a piercing battle cry emits from her beak. The blaziken, from what he's observed, is a reserved thing; but when it comes to the battlefield, she's but a mirror image of her trainer, draped in feathers and flame.

"Yeah! Let's get him!" Maybe she hasn't battled for a while, but Sapphire seems way too excited about this. Her enthusiasm may or may not be attributed to the unknown sugar content of non-blue pokeblocks. "Burn his eyebrows!"

He cringes. "Don't you dare touch my eyebrows!"

"Sorry! I meant burn the enemy!"

Sceptile sighs, and although his back is to him, Emerald highly suspects the grass-type is rolling his eyes.

"Hey Emerald!" She doesn't seem to intend to cross the field to talk to him normally, opting to shout at the top of her lungs. If she's trying to attract attention to their grand battle, it's working; a sizable crowd had gathered around the public arena. Or maybe they're just wondering what Sapphire is yelling about. "Type disadvantage! How about a double battle?!"

Emerald been confident that Sceptile can easily take on a fire-type with their secret weapon, but he's not one to back down from a challenge.

"Fine— I'd win either way!"

Double battle it is. With Sudowoodo and Sapphire's aggron joining the stage, the area falls silent with anticipation.

The volunteer referee raises his arm; it wasn't hard to find someone willing to facilitiate a casual match between two Pokedex Holders. "We're ready to begin! Who wants to make the first move?"

"Emerald first," Sapphire calls out in a condescending tone of voice. He smirks.

"If that's what you want."

"Then Trainer Emerald will start!" The referee bows out of the arena. "Begin!"

Emerald's heart is going a mile a minute, tactic after tactic flying through his mind as he steps forward with his first command.

"Sceptile, energy ball! Sudowoodo, calm mind!"

As Sudowoodo closes her eyes in concentration, Sceptile begins forming the ball of light with his claws. Meanwhile, Sapphire calls out to her own pokemon. "Rono, aerial ace!"

If he were a lesser trainer, he'd have been surprised at the command. The great steel-type doesn't look very agile, yet lurches forward with a creak and launches forward at a surprising speed, heading straight for Sceptile.

"Sudowoodo, cover!"

Sudowoodo twists and slams her bough into Rono's oncoming head, but the tree-like pokemon's block only creates a bell-like chime on the aggron's steel cranium. Rono rams right into Sudowoodo's middle, sending her flying a few meters away. Just then, Sceptile finally unleashes his energy ball, the glowing green light exploding right in the aggron's side.

But Rono barely flinches. Emerald clicks his tongue.

"Toro, flamethrower!"

The torrent of flame barely misses Sceptile by the tail as the grass-type lithely dances out of the way.

"Bulldoze, Sceptile!"

"Rono, iron head on Sudowoodo!"

Rono throws his head back, only to stumble after Sceptile stomps on the ground to unleash his ground-type move. Not giving up, the aggron growls and turns to headbutt Sceptile instead, but Sceptile grabs him by the horns right before they can graze his chest.

"Toro!" The blaziken finally dashes up to Emerald's side of the field, where Sceptile and Rono are tussling. "Use knock off!"

Toro strikes Sceptile across the collarbone with a fist; the grass-type squawks in surprise, dropping his leftovers. Toro follows it up with a punch to the face.

"Sudowoodo, mimic!"

Sudowoodo jumps back into the fray and takes an identical swing at Toro. The blaziken cries out, stumbling and dropping its own leftovers.

"Sky uppercut!"

Before Emerald can say anything, Toro has sent Sudowoodo a good ten feet into the air with a punch to the midsection. The rock-type lands with a loud thud in the centre of the field and stays there, groaning.

Emerald clicks his tongue. It's down to two on one- not that it's that much of a surprise to him, considering how he'd agreed to a battle with such heavy type disadvantages.

But type rock-paper-scissors don't make or break his fights. He's not just any run of the mill trainer. Emerald is a tactician; he can make the most out of any situation, no matter how many limitations he's bound with. That's how he beat the Frontier in only a week. No, this is nothing to him!

"Sceptile!" he cries out. "Earthquake!"

Sceptile lets out a triumphant cry as his trainer finally orders the use of their trump card. The grass-type turns, raises his palm tail high and slams the ground, sending a violent tremor through the earth. Rono lets out an angry roar, followed by a crash as he falls to his knees, out for the count.

Both Toro and Rono are weak to ground moves– it's over.

But just as he's about to lie back and watch his victory unfold, Sapphire throws her arm up into the air. Immediately, her blaziken launches herself off the ground before Earthquake can each its full effect, and with her pale wing-like cape, soars right over the shaking ground in Sceptile's direction. Before either Emerald or Sceptile can react, Toro cocks her fist backwards.

"Flame punch, Toro!"

The burning fist connects with the side of Sceptile's head, and the grass-type squawks in surprise before being sent a couple feet away, his body spinning like a windmill.

In those few moments, Emerald's options are extremely limited: Sudowoodo had fainted, and Sceptile is immobile mid-air.

But he works best with limits.

"Another flame punch! And another!" roars Sapphire from across the field, throwing her own fists into the air; in turn, her blaziken's fists glow with flame, preparing to leap once more. If she gets even one more hit in, Sceptile would be out.

"Sceptile, acrobatics!"

He swears he can see his pokemon smirk as Sceptile's body suddenly contorts, flipping around to land on his toes; he skids for a bit, shredding grass underfoot with his claws, only to launch himself back into the air in Toro's direction.

"Push him back!" Sapphire commands, and with a cry, Toro leaps at Sceptile as well, flaming fist cocked back to deliver what could very well be the final flame punch.

"This has to work!" Emerald yells as Sceptile and Toro meet in the centre of the field, mid-air, "Sceptile!"

Toro's flame punch is blocked by Sceptile's nimble arm; though his scales begin to singe, the grass-type begins the belated motions of acrobatics, battering Toro's front with a flurry of punches, kicks and hits with his tail. Toro is caught off-guard by Sceptile's speed, her flames fizzling out as Sceptile delivers one final kick to her gut, sending her to the ground with a crash.

"Yes!" Emerald cheers, just as Sapphire's terrified "No!" rings out from the other side of the arena.

Sceptile's landing is a bit ungraceful, stumbling a little, but manages to land upright by Toro's feet. He rubs at his burned arm; he made it, but just barely. Toro, meanwhile, lies flat on her back, motionless save for her heavy panting. It's over.

Emerald shoots Sapphire a smug grin. He's won.

"This battle seems to have been decided!" The referee calls out, stepping forward onto the field. The crowd begins to applaud. "The winner is-"

"BLAZE KICK!"

"What?!"

Toro's eyes suddenly fly open, and with a piercing screech, lifts one of her legs to kick at Sceptile's stomach. The grass-type is completely taken aback, and upon contact the blaziken's leg erupts into scorching flame, the embers enveloping Sceptile's already-battered body. The reptilian pokemon is sent flying a ways away, landing in a scorching heap.

"What the fuck- Sceptile!" Emerald is too stunned to even move. How?! "Sceptile, get up!"

But as the flames disappear from his body, Sceptile doesn't budge.

Toro, on the other hand, forces herself to sit upright with a grunt. The stunned audience begins to cheer, clapping with fervour at the unexpected turnabout of events.

"Awesome, Toro!" Sapphire cries, jumping into the air. "You did it!"

"It seems I spoke too soon." The referee speaks over her cheering, sounding bemused. "It looks like our winner for this fight is Trainer Sapphire!"

Emerald falls to his knees, jaw still hanging open. How could Toro still be able to move? He'd been so confident in his win that he hadn't been paying attention to the fight to the very end.

Sapphire recalls Rono to his pokeball, walking up to Toro to congratulate her. Emerald finally pulls himself to his feet to do the same, recalling both his fainted pokemon. "You guys did great," he whispers to them through their pokeballs. "get some rest."

He approaches Sapphire.

"Good fight." he says a little mopily. (His ego is shattered, what can he do?) She looks at him and laughs.

"Don't look like that, Emerald! Y'know it was real close. Coulda gone either way!"

The crowd begins to disperse. Emerald gives the volunteer referee a light wave as the guy leaves.

"I guess I bit off more than I could chew, trying to fight with that kind of disadvantage." He won't tell her that he probably underestimated her ability, too, but he won't be doing that again. "That double battle turned into two versus one pretty quickly."

"But ya still did pretty good, considerin'! Like takin' advantage of Toro's knock off so that ya could use acrobatics at double power?" Sapphire sounds impressed. "I never coulda expected that!"

"Yet Toro managed to tank it anyway." He pats the blaziken's head. "How'd she even do that?"

"We kinda got it from Ruby."

He raises an eyebrow. "You use Ruby in pokemon battles?"

"What? No, he just taught Toro how ta do some actin'." Sapphire puffs out her chest and does a bad impression of the guy. "'Now ya see, the most delicate beauty lies in the smallest of details. If yer knocked down, pretend ta be a princess, fast asleep in the cradle of-' and I can't remember anythin' after that."

"You could've just told me he taught your pokemon to play dead." Emerald rolls his eyes, though it's more out of exasperation in himself. What a ridiculously simple trick. If he hadn't been so blinded by the illusion of his win, he probably could have seen through it immediately.

A sigh escapes his mouth. "Whatever, man. You win. But don't think we're not having a rematch to find the true winner."

Sapphire perks up. "Of course!"

"...And no weird Ruby-inspired tricks next time."

Toro chuffs in amusement, while Sapphire rubs the back of her head sheepishly.

"Well, you got your battle. What now?" Emerald stretches his arms to the sky; he could use a nap, in all honesty, but Sapphire looks like she's still high on adrenaline by the way she rocks on her heels.

"I want ice cream!" She swipes some sweat off her forehead; not even being a local can protect you from Hoenn's beating sun, it seems. "Can we get some? Toro and Rono like ice cream too."

He shrugs. "Sure. There's a parlor not far from the Lilycove Department Store."

Sapphire hops to her feet, recalling Toro to her pokeball. "Alright! Race ya!"

"Huh?"

But she's already taken off, loping past bystanders and making a beeline for the department store. Emerald shakes his head, sighing, but can't help the smile forming on his lips at how her enthusiasm trumps her self-consciousness. He starts running after her.

"Hey, wait up!"

xxx

Between the five channels he'd never known he had (who watches TV when you've got the internet?), he'd found a documentary among the sleazy soaps that he thought would keep Sapphire's attention. It was about Unovan wildlife or something boring like that. But said girl had curled up on the couch flanked by Sceptile and Toro, looking interested, so he'd left them to get some assembly done.

But by now, said documentary has since ended, and has now been succeeded by that animated mecha Proteam shit. He'd heard it was based on senior Red's pokemon team, but Sapphire seems too drowsy to be fangirling. The pokemon surrounding her are fast asleep. A day of battling does that to you.

He'd have been napping away himself, but seeing the cartoon had somehow reminded him of Gold's last few e-mails- and the way he'd responded to them. Perhaps it's how being reminded of one of his seniors makes him aware of them all. Regardless, he feels terrible all of a sudden. He may have patched things up with Sapphire, but he has yet to resolve every other mistake he's made in recent weeks.

Emerald ponders his options for a minute. The other occupants of the room are basically unconscious, so eventually he pulls out his pokenav and braves a call.

This time, Crystal actually picks up the phone.

"Crys?" he blurts out unceremoniously.

"Hey Emerald!" It's been so long since he'd last heard Crystal's cheerful voice. "How's it going?"

"Ah, er, fine! And you?"

" I'm at Gold's place right now."

He nearly drops his pokenav, but quickly composes himself. "Oh?"

"Well, Silver really wanted to watch this movie, and you know, I can't turn him down. He's setting up the TV now."

"And... Gold?"

"Um... over here..." Some footsteps. "Popcorn. Really, he's an awful host, asking his guests to go "make their own"." Gold begins shouting something about colonizers in the background, but Crystal walks away quickly. Emerald idly wonders about what flavor of popcorn he chose.

"Well, that's good. I'm glad you're taking a break and having some fun." And he's being genuine. While there are probably better places for Crystal to de-stress than Gold's place, he's happy that she's taken any time off at all.

"Me too, Rald." He can hear the smile in her voice. "And you? I hope you're not cooping yourself at home all day."

"Naw, I go out. Especially 'coz one of them found me." Crystal laughs.

"Be nice to Ruby and Sapphire, okay? You have some nice human friends."

"Hah, maybe."

Sapphire is rubbing her eyes, face buried in a pillow. It's nowhere near the time he usually sleeps; it feels odd, because he'd always thought of her being a night noctowl for some reason.

"Anyway, I'd love to continue talking later, Emerald . Silver's done and so is Gold, so I better join in."

"Yeah, you should." He really has no idea when the next time she'll even pick up will be, and it's a bittersweet feeling. "Have fun, Crys."

"If I can't call, I'll drop you a mail, alright? I have some nice pictures of Kalosian pokemon I know you'll like. Bye, Rald!"

"Uh, sorry, one more thing. Could you apologize to Gold for me?"

"Huh? Did you two argue?"

"Nah." Emerald doubts the guy bears a grudge, knowing him, but he wants Gold to know that he didn't mean to be so prickly in their recent e-mails. That, among other things he should probably try to clarify in a longer e-mail sometime soon; but this is a start. "Just want him to know, that's all."

"Well, I guess I can't refuse. I'll let him know." Despite the strangeness in what he'd just said, Crystal sounds... happy. Probably knows more than she's letting on, as always. "Anything else you need?"

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks, Crystal. You go have fun."

"Thanks! And the same goes for you, Emerald. I'll talk to you later."

She hangs up, and the room is silent once more, save for the TV droning on in the background. He simply stares at his pokenav screen for a while.

"Was that senior Crystal?" Sapphire pipes up, almost scaring him. His talking had probably woken her up a bit.

"Ah, yeah, it was."

"I haven't talked ta her in a while." She hums thoughtfully. "Could ya tell me the next time ya call her?"

He shrugs, pocketing his pokenav and taking a seat in front of the couch. "I guess. She's always busy, though, being Professor Oak's assistant."

"My Papa never gives me that much work."

"Well, you're his kid." he says. Flashbacks to the burly professor's strong pats across the back and terrible dad jokes enter his mind. "And I guess he's a bit of a carefree guy. Like you. I doubt he likes doing that kind of office work all day."

Sapphire is quiet for a bit.

"Uh, did I say something?"

"I was just wondering… can I ask?" She looks awake.

"Well, sure."

"Are ya… lonely? Without a family."

Emerald looks down. He hadn't thought about that in a long time.

"I have my pokemon." he finally replies, staring at Sceptile's dozing form.

And it's no lie– ever since the incident at the Frontier years ago, he'd learned to put his selfishness aside to care for his pokemon like his own friends. Heck, they're his family by now. Sceptile, Sudowoodo, Dusclops and the rest always go out of their way to take care of him, and he's grateful for that. He can only try his best to do the same for them.

"…So I'm not all alone or anything." he finishes.

"Oh, that's good!"

Sapphire beams, relieved.

The TV continues to drone on in the background. "Why'd you ask about that, anyway?"

"I jus' wanted ta make sure ya weren't all alone."

Her expression is frustratingly compassionate. At times like these, he's obligated to return the favor, right? He rubs the back of his neck.

"How about you?" he ventures. "Who do you hang out with when Ruby's gone?"

"E-eh?! I don't depend on Ruby that much!"

He gives her a deadpan look, and she withers.

"Okay, we're kinda together all the time... but I have other friends! Even better friends!" She starts counting off on her fingers, which ironically seems to contradict her point. "My pokemon, Papa, Ruby's mom, all the Gym leaders probably, this Wally kid I met a few times-"

Emerald's chuckle leaves his mouth of its own accord, interrupting her spiel. "Looks like I'm not the only one who needs to branch out."

"Hey!"

Though he doubts Sapphire actually has trouble making friends (he expects she's overbearing enough to force people to entertain her, much like she did him), it's pretty clear that she's with her boyfriend most of the time anyway. "You can't rely on Ruby to drag you out of the jungle, wild girl."

Sapphire pouts.

Another question weighs on his tongue, and he purses his lips in consideration. A few moments of silence pass, and when Sapphire tilts her head at him, eyes big and curious, he decides to just throw it out there.

"Um, you know," His tongue struggles to cooperate. "if we both have nothing else to do... we could hang out together. More often, I mean."

He cringes internally, regretting what he said as soon as the words leave his mouth.

Emerald half expects her to call out his hypocrisy, or to reject him outright, because only a few weeks ago he'd been trying to kick her out of his place at every opportunity. But as it turns out, that's nothing but his cynicism talking. Because Sapphire's face breaks out into the happiest smile he's ever seen, so blindingly bright that he can barely stare right at her.

"Yes!" Her outburst startles all the dozing pokemon on the couch awake, blinking sleepily and looking around. But Sapphire doesn't seem to notice in her excitement, pulling herself up to sit upright, her blanket falling off her shoulders to pool at her waist.

"Y-yeah?"

"Aw, Emerald, whaddya think we've been doin'?" She suddenly reaches out to pull him into a painfully tight hug. "Of course I'll hang out with ya! We're friends, aren't we?"

"Of course..." Her body crushed against his is a horribly nice feeling. His cheeks warm, only to burst into flames when he sees Sceptile's smug face behind Sapphire. Damn reptile couldn't stay asleep for this. "Yeah, I guess that was a dumb question."

She pulls away, still beaming as she looks at him. "I mean, we're obviously pals, but I didn't know ya actually wanted to go places together. Ya shoulda said so sooner! I got a big map of Hoenn marked with cool places ta explore."

"As long as we're not crossing ravines on a tightrope, I guess I'm alright with it." He sweats; Sapphire's passionate wanderlust is showing. Perhaps she's been hiding it until now because his greatest travels involve walking from the bathroom to the kitchen. "Haven't you already been around Hoenn though?"

"I was in a race! No time ta stop and smell the roses. Oh! We could go ta another region though! Remember Alola? Wouldn't that be super cool? We can be travel buddies!"

She's absolutely glowing, even if she is getting a little ahead of herself. A soft smile makes its way onto his face.

"Hold on, Sapphire."

She blinks. He takes in a deep breath.

"I don't mind all that, but I just wanted to tell you that... I don't mind. Being with you, I mean."

All their pokemon are watching their exchange silently, curiously. Sapphire doesn't respond immediately, looking oddly subdued. He can only hope that she isn't angry.

"I just wanted to let you know that, because I didn't tell you before." He awkwardly reiterates, chewing his lip. "Sorry." he tacks on lamely.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. He's sorry for pushing her away, he's sorry for hiding, he's sorry for being selfish and unnecessarily grumpy and a bad friend and being a second Ruby- he wants to tell her everything, but the words won't come out. Emerald would be lying if he said he'd accept such a garbage excuse of an apology if it was presented to him. His attempts at being sincere are falling flat once again; perhaps it's because his pride is still getting in the way, after all this time.

He really doesn't deserve her.

But Emerald isn't Sapphire, who simply gives him a gracious smile.

"I know."

It's all she says in response; as quiet and knowing as the ocean in her eyes. It's almost as if she's used to interpreting seemingly half-assed apologies.

He gives her a weak smile, which she returns with an even bigger grin.

xxx

When he enters his workshop, his PC monitor is on, glowing in the dim light. His notifications are flashing.

The new mail from prince charming kind of irritates him. He'll ignore it.

Could you tell her that I'm sorry?

Xxx

Saturday morning dawns bright and clear.

Going down into the workroom, he's only mildly surprised to see Sapphire stretched across the couch. He hadn't realised that she'd slept over again, but then he realises that she's been doing so for the past few days. It's still taking some getting used to.

Getting used to. Emerald can't chase her off because he's the one who told her to sleep inside, rather than outside. He knows she's fine out there, but it doesn't make him feel any less uneasy about her sleeping in a tree. (Not that he'll tell her that, of course.)

A moment passes before Sapphire lifts her head to stare at him blearily; he'd think that he had woken her up by walking in, but she sounds quite awake.

"Hiya."

"Hey. What are you up to?" He rubs at one of his eyes. "Seems like you've been up for a while."

She hums, resting her chin on folded arms.

"Ah, well... I just realised somethin', so I was thinkin' about it."

Ah, an epiphany. He can only hope that it isn't about him, and that she'd come to realise that he's just not worth the effort of being his friend after all.

"I'm surprised you were thinking that hard in the first place," he jokes, coming up to the couch to take a seat. Couch therapy sessions have been becoming more and more frequent lately, he realises.

"Yanno when we had that fight? The argument, I mean." she asks, sitting up.

He winces when she brings it up so bluntly. Could it even have been called an argument if he's the only one who did any arguing?

"Well, yeah, I do."

"And yanno know we were both kinda wrong? I realised that maybe, my fight with Ruby was the same." Sappphire seems a bit glum. "While he was an idiot, I shouldn't have gotten all mad at him without lettin' him explain, either."

Emerald's mind goes back to Ruby's last e-mail, and he can only imagine the kind of argument they'd had to have led to all this.

"Yeah, probably not. What did you even do?"

"That day we fought was my birthday. He surprised me with a trip ta Sinnoh." She scratches her cheek, and he realises that this is the first time he's learned of her birthdate. "He wanted ta go with me. I was really happy."

"Didn't you say he was bringing along someone else, too?"

Sapphire puffs out her cheeks. "Ugh... yeah. Some coordinator girl. He told me that I could bring someone else too, but I just..."

"Wanted it to just be the two of you."

She nods quietly, poking her fingers together as a blush spreads across her cheeks. He raises an eyebrow.

"And you couldn't just tell him that?"

"You don't get it." Sapphire mumbles. "He wouldn't have listened ta me. And besides..."

Emerald is already feeling exasperated.

"Even with that other girl comin' along, I woulda still wanted ta go, ya know. But... I was expectin' somethin' else from Ruby, ta be honest."

"'Something else'?"

Sapphire lowers her voice. "...Can ya keep a secret?"

"Uh..." He's not sure if this is something she should be telling him.

"Okay, so like three years ago," she begins anyway, "Ruby said... he l-liked me."

Eugh .

He'd leave the room, because the last thing he wants to hear about is her relationship issues with Ruby. But he feels indebted to her enough to sit down and listen to her tale of woe. That, and he's still tired.

"Uh... huh."

"But after that, he pretended not ta remember that stuff happened, even though I'm always asking him about it! And, I dunno, after a while I was gettin' tired of it..." Sapphire's playing with the ends of her shirt nervously. "I thought I could get 'im to spill on my birthday of all days, but, no. So... I yelled at him."

Their inability to keep their relationship issues in check is once again leaving an overwhelming distaste flooding his mouth as Sapphire rambles on. He'd already known that this is what he'd be hearing if he'd agreed to listen to her rant, but he's already regretting it. He feels sour.

He hates hearing them squabble non-stop. He hates the indifferent look on Ruby's face whenever Sapphire yells at him. He hates that they won't just give it up already.

Emerald massages his temples. He's heard enough bickering to have some knowledge about what's been bothering her, but now that he has a clearer picture...

"So he's a fake amnesiac, and you throw his present back at him. Both of you did wrong. Okay."

"He's a liar," she mumbles, staring off to the side, "but... yeah. I shouldn't have been all mad at him like that."

"I guess not..."

Sapphire whines. "But, you know, it's hard! I... I like him too, and he knows that, but I dunno if he changed his mind, or somethin'?" She says the latter part quickly, digging her fingers into the carpet, clawing at the plush fur. "Every time I look at him, I... it's like... he defeated me."

Defeated. He leans into his hand. "You mean, this is a game of some sort?"

"I guess. Coz it's like he's won." She ducks her head. "I don't think I'll ever stop liking him. Maybe he knows that. So he won."

He snorts at their perpetual rivalry. The competition, it seems, has seeped into some of the deepest aspects of their lives.

"I'm not sure if he's that much of an asshole, but, alright." He looks her in the eye. "So... this is a competition."

"Uh... I never thought of it like that but–"

"If that's the case, I think I know a way you can turn the tables."

She perks up. The sparkle in her eyes is terrible.

"How?"

He isn't sure if he should bother, really– after all this time, how would this change anything between her and Ruby?

But maybe, he thinks, this is something that just has to be said.

"Find someone else." he says simply, clutching the pokenav, and the gleam in Sapphire's eyes disappear as soon as it came. "Just realise that, sometimes, the person you like just doesn't feel the same way. They have something, or... someone else, that fills up that place in their heart, and you can't blame them for that."

The bed creaks as she leans closer, as if looking for a different answer hidden deep inside him.

"And you gotta move on yourself. If you can't find another person, just... dedicate your feelings to your battles, or your pokemon, or something."

"B-but that time..." she stutters miserably, "he said–"

"Forget it." His gaze flicks to the open window to avoid seeing her expression. "He's a liar, right?"

A full minute of silence passes as he watches Sceptile spar with Toro. The grass-type dodges and parries his opponent's flurry of kicks and punches with unrivalled grace, before taking the dive and clipping her with a slam of his tail.

As the blaziken stumbles, Sapphire finally speaks.

"…Can I borrow yer pokenav? I wanna call Ruby."

xxx

He was initially slightly (very slightly) concerned that Ruby would find out that he hadn't passed on his apology to Sapphire, but it seems like it doesn't really matter anyway. Sapphire's smiling brighter than she had the whole week she'd been hanging out with him (at least, that's what it seems like), babbling on about their adventures and shit to Ruby.

They'd made up rather quickly. Emerald isn't sure whether their last fight just wasn't as bad as Sapphire made it out to be, if they're completely ignoring the issue, or if this whole drama was really that commonplace. Knowing these two, it's probably a case of the third.

"So didja win all five categories? How shiny are the ribbons?"

Toro hovers over her trainer, like a mother happy that her children have temporarily stopped fighting.

Sceptile coos, nudging him with the handle of the screwdriver he'd asked the pokemon to fetch.

"Ah, thanks." he says, returning his attention to the gadget in his hand.

As he positions a screw over the plastic frame, he's distracted once more by Sapphire's sudden bout of laughter.

"Zuzu did that? What else, what else happened?!"

Emerald pulls a face. Sceptile chuffs heartily, patting him on the back.

"Don't give me that," he warns the pokemon. "go away."

There's no way he could be jealous of those two.

Flirting constantly? Who wants that?

xxx

The Frontier is loud as ever, but his heart is lighter than it'd been for a very long time. Sceptile probably feels it too, with the way he struts confidently onto the stage.

Sapphire grins at him from across the playing field.

"You ready?!" She somehow yells above the cheers and the noise, and it only riles the crowd up even further. Although she's on all fours yet again, her pose is so full of confidence and her voice full of vigor that he really wonders why she'd renounced the idea of becoming Hoenn League Champion so quickly. She seems to fit right into this noisy atmosphere. She'd be the most eccentric Champion yet, but he feels like she'd definitely be a good one.

But he supposes that even Sapphire can't constantly be in the centre of attention. If she was off being Champion, she wouldn't have time to muck around in the jungle, or spend time with her dad or boyfriend. Or even spend time with himself. How much of her sacrificing the League was for the sake of the people around her? He shakes his head. He'll ask her some other time.

"Ready!" he finally replies with a shout, and Sceptile caws after him.

Time to get his head in the game.

xxx

By the time they leave the facility, the Frontier has been bathed in the orange of the setting sun, visible on the ocean horizon.

"We were at it for a really long time." Emerald has his hands behind his head, feeling satisfied. "Nothing like a Frontier battle, huh?"

Sapphire concedes a bit, smiling as she walks alongside him. "Iunno if they beat normal battles, but yeah! It was pretty fun."

"You just need more experience here, that's all. We can come back another time."

The crowds are receding along with the boats in the distance and the clouds in the tired sky, pulling away as if the Battle Frontier itself had just uttered a large yawn. Events are winding down, although the facility still has a half hour before closing for the day.

"I could go fer a big meal right now." Sapphire sighs. "But all the restaurants here are closin' up."

Emerald smiles at her predictability. He's nowhere as famished, but if Sapphire's hungry, they could stop by the mall in Lilycove-

His legs freeze when he suddenly spots Greta in the distance. Sapphire makes a confused noise, stopping alongside him, but he can only stare. The Arena Tycoon is busy chatting with the other Frontier Brains; having descended from the caverns of their Battle facilities, they all look worn out from a day's work, but still relatively chipper.

The normally weightless pokenav number at the bottom of Emerald's wallet grows heavy, and he's speaking before he can completely make up his mind.

"Hey." He nudges Sapphire.

"Yeah?"

"How about a dinner with the Frontier Brains?"

xxx

He'd felt nervous about going, to the point that he'd considered bailing at the door. But Sapphire had him by the wrist, barging into the Brains' lounge as if she lived there (which is seemingly a trend). But he's glad she did, because things turned out not so bad after all.

The staff room where the Brains have their dinner party is at the center of the Frontier by the administration offices. It's relatively small, but he supposes it suits the occasion; it's just a staff dinner, after all, and a smaller space creates a more intimate atmosphere. A single, long table, laden with everything from casserole to butter cakes, sits in the centre of the room, and everyone has found a seat around it.

Spenser, Noland and Lucy chat at one end of the table, talking logistics or whatnot. Emerald supposes that it's something that just has to be done, considering how the Brains play a huge part in running the whole Frontier. But they're sort of missing out, because everyone else is busy laughing and joking with him and Sapphire.

Sapphire stuffs another slice of cake into her mouth in what is the most ill-mannered way possible, though all Brandon does is laugh heartily. "Big eater, aren't you?"

"Shure are!"

Anabel cringes ever so slightly, but her gentle smile never falls. "I hope the food tastes okay for you guys. We let Tucker choose the caterer this time, and, well, he's not the best at..."

"Excuse me?!" Tucker places a hand on his forehead. "Anabel, you said you trusted me!"

Greta sighs. "Well, her trust was clearly misplaced. This spaghetti tastes like a plate of rubber bands. Who did you even call, Tucker?"

"What?! The spaghetti tastes fine!"

"Have you even tried it?" Emerald asks skeptically.

"He's on a 'diet', did you forget?" Brandon says, downing another spoonful of couscous. "I'm not even sure if he's had any food tonight!"

Anabel looks troubled. "Tucker, being on a diet doesn't mean not eating!"

"You're just believing him?! Of course I'm eating! I'm just eating less!"

Greta and Sapphire burst out into laughter as Tucker makes a show of eating a forkful of spaghetti, only to gag at the taste.

"Ya aren't tryin' hard enough!" Sapphire scarfs down some spaghetti herself, chewing and swallowing with little effort.

"D-did you actually just eat that?!"

The food in general is admittedly mediocre, and Emerald can only sheepishly cradle his plate. He'd hate to throw it out when he's the guest here. Sapphire doesn't seem to have any issues, though, shovelling everything she can reach into her mouth; he suspects that she's destroyed her taste buds by eating dirty berries or whatever all her life.

Not that it really matters. Being here lets him see just how much everyone loves her– for all her running on all fours and making pokemon noises and wearing muddy clothes and eating like a slob, Sapphire's sheer friendliness overshadows it all and charms everyone she meets. She had never really been properly acquaintanced to all of the Brains before this like he had,

And he's glad. She doesn't have to be normal, which means... neither does he. Sapphire had made it look so simple that he wonders why he hadn't realised this earlier.

Greta plops herself into the empty seat beside him. The table's conversation had already moved to Sapphire's 80-day journey from a couple years back, and since he already has the gist of that story, he decided to sit out. Why Greta is approaching him, though...

"Hey. Fun party, huh?" she whispers, plucking a brownie out of a tray. "Okay, well, it's not much of a party, but."

He smirks. "Yeah, it's fine I guess. Room's a bit stuffy with Tucker in it, though."

"Pfft, don't tell him that." Greta snickers.

"It's true though."

"But I'm glad you actually came." She pulls her legs under the chair. "After two weeks, I was beginning to think you wouldn't. What changed your mind?"

"Oh, well..."

She grins. "It's that girl, isn't it? Sapphire."

"Huh, what?" Emerald stares at her, bewildered. "How'd you guess?"

"I mean, it's kind of obvious. You don't seem like the type to bring someone along to a party. That, and I didn't think she's the kind of personality you'd get along with." Greta deduces, a finger on her chin. "So I just assumed she'd convinced you of something. But I could be wrong."

He chews the inside of his cheek sheepishly, opting not to confirm or deny her theory. "Well, it doesn't really matter. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Guess so."

They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching Sapphire and the other Brains chatter away about past adventures, before Greta speaks up again.

"We can go for a walk, if you'd like."

He blinks at the word 'we'.

"...Really?"

"Sure, this is just a casual thing anyway. Want me to show you around?" Greta asks, lights in her eyes. "The Frontier recently had spotlights and garlands installed everywhere, so it makes for a fantastic nightwalk."

He considers her for a moment, sparing a glance in Sapphire's direction once more; the trainer is laughing away with the other Brains, looking like she's having a great time. Well, if Sapphire can have fun tonight, he can too, can't he?

A small smile makes its way onto his face. "Sure, why not?"

Greta smiles in return, and they get up from their seats together. He then follows her out the door, into the night air.

As it turns out, all he ever needed was to just have a little confidence in himself.

xxx

It had taken a surprisingly short period of deliberation for Emerald to come to a decision on this. Or maybe he should just come clean and admit to himself that it was really a spur of the moment decision, like a lot of choices he made whenever Sapphire's around to influence him. She really has ruined his life.

But she's nothing but a picture of complete innocence as she stares at the box in his hand, bewildered. "Huh?"

"...It was your birthday the other day."

Sapphire's cheeks pink. It's horrible because it only serves to make his own face heat further.

"Yanno, when ya gave me that dirt, I was really happy already," she murmurs, "and the battle and everything. Ya've done a lot for me!"

Nothing compared to what she's done for him. He looks away. "Stop being meek and take it."

The weight leaves his palm.

"Thank ya, Rald."

She stares at it in wonderment for a few more seconds before Emerald gets annoyed.

"You can... open it now, you know. If you want."

"Oh! Yeah, okay," Sapphire mumbles somewhat distractedly, and begins tearing at the wrapping. His heart thumps ever louder in his chest. Why is he so nervous?

"It's… what's this?"

Sapphire fumbles with the custom water gun until Emerald sighs and takes her hands, guiding her fingers to the trigger.

"Don't shoot it at me, or I'm taking it back." he warns quickly. "It's a water gun."

She gasps.

"One of yer gadgets!" Sapphire squeals. "Emerald, are ya sure I can have this?!"

"I mean, yeah. I'm giving it to you."

"Ahh, thank you, Emerald! This is super cool!" Sapphire closes an eye and makes 'pew, pew' noises in an apparent imitation of him using his own E-Shooter. "I can be like you now!"

"Yeah," Emerald concedes. He's not sure why he's so nervous right now, analysing her every reaction to his present; perhaps it's just because it's his creation she's holding. "I… call it the S-Shooter."

"'Shooter'…" She pauses. "Wait, ain't this the thingamajig ya've been workin' on all week?"

"Kind of. Yeah."

"But wasn't this for the Conference or somethin'?"

He'd felt bad about giving her something that wasn't originally meant for her at first. But after thinking about it, he realised that it didn't really matter if his plans had changed along the way. What matters is what his feelings are in the present. And right now, he wants to be a good friend. He wants to do whatever he can to make Sapphire happy.

"I changed my mind. You can have it." Emerald smiles up at her a little sheepishly. "…I hope you don't take this the wrong way–"

"Awesome!"

Sapphire holds up the shooter, admiring the little model of herself in the dispenser component; a reference to his own. Meanwhile, Emerald heaves a sigh of relief at her easygoing nature. Maybe he should stop overthinking things around her.

"So what do I use this on? Maybe dangerous pokemon?" She pokes the little water canister part of the gun.

"You can." Emerald begins, reflecting on the construction process and all its technicalities. "But mind you, this isn't one of those cheap toys you get at the shady Slateport marketplace, you know. The S-Shooter has a variety of potential uses tied to its 36 different nozzle combinations. Its default function is to act as a basic pokemon deterrent for when things get dangerous, like when you're out doing research in pokemon habitats, so you can refill it with Super Repel instead of water. The different spray patterns will let you hit the target pokemon in the most effective area with precision; the nozzles are numbered, and the numbers correspond to different body types." He taps the canister on the gun. "Alternatively, you can fill it with shampoo or something to help give your dirty pokemon a wash, though make sure to turn the pressure dial all the way down for a gentle spray, unless you're bathing Rono, because then you'd probably have to turn it all the way up to clean his armor. Of course, the S-Shooter's primary function is still self defense, so I wouldn't advise wasting its functions on things you could do without it. It's alright if you're gonna put liquids besides water in the canister, as long as it's just liquids– the S-Shooter can stand extreme temperatures on both ends of the scale, as well as high and low pH levels, and even nuclear energy to some extent– but if you do, make sure to either wash it thoroughly afterwards or get a replacement canister from me, unless you want something to eventually blow up."

Sapphire blinks.

He sighs. "You can shoot Ruby with it."

She lights up.

"Oh my gosh! That's fantastic!"

"Isn't it?" He can't not smile at that, though, imagining a dour Ruby completely soaked to the bone after a surprise attack by Sapphire. "Just blast him if he ever gets too annoying. Which will be pretty often, I predict."

Sapphire giggles, cheeks flushed and smiling all pretty-like. Emerald is about to make another joke about the coordinator when hears some scuffling by the door; turning to look behind him, he sees Sceptile, Sudowoodo, Dusclops and a couple of Sapphire's pokemon peering inside, eyes gleaming with anticipation.

"What are you guys looking at?" He scowls at their coy expressions. What's with those faces?

Sceptile chirps mischievously in reply, smiling, while Sudowoodo has her branches near her face, cooing happily.

"Toro! Check out what Emerald gave me!" Sapphire prances around, doing more mock shooting poses. Her blaziken walks up to her, observing the gadget with mild curiosity. "I'm gonna spray Ruby with it."

The other pokemon then enter the workroom as well, to take a peek at Sapphire's new toy and mill around. Dusclops comes up to him and gives his hair a good ruffle, made even more intense by the fact that Dusclops has giant hands.

"H-hey!"

Emerald glares up at the ghost-type, whose only reply is a raised lower eyelid, giving him a happy eye. Sceptile and Sudowoodo cheerfully titter away off to the side.

"Jeez, what's with you guys?" He quickly fixes his hair back into his ponytail, shooting his other two pokemon an irritated look. "Why are you being so embarrassing?"

Sceptile merely smirks at him, crossing his scaly arms, looking as if he knows something he doesn't. Emerald huffs in return.

What would Sceptile know, anyway?

xxx

Sapphire doesn't seem to mind lazing about and watching TV whenever he can't entertain her, so she and their amalgamy of pokemon have made themselves comfortable in front of a Proteam Omega marathon. This time, they're actually awake for it, munching away at pokeblocks, and Emerald can only wonder how many of those Sapphire has stashed away.

They'd all spent a few days mucking around together, having intermittent pokemon battles, taking trips to various places of interest around Lilycove City and exploring the ocean shores. She'd gotten herself a new pokenav at the Department Store and he'd spent a couple hours trying to coach her on how to use the S-Shooter, to varying degrees of success.

They just did... whatever they felt like doing. Emerald hasn't felt as active in forever. Heck, he even has trouble keeping up with Sapphire sometimes, but he refuses to show it.

Because he hasn't felt this happy in forever, either.

Emerald sends off a final e-mail to Professor Oak with a dramatic tap of the enter key, then swivels around in his desk chair to face the couch and its occupants.

"Work's done for today." he announces. The pokemon at the couch make noises of approval, while Sapphire cheers.

"Okay, good! Now get over here, they're about ta face the final boss!"

Sapphire's eyes remain glued to the TV screen. Too lazy to get out of his seat, he rolls over to the others in his chair, and they all sit in relative silence watching the Proteam defeat Mecha Team Skull.

It's during a commerical break that Emerald realises something.

"You know, speaking of work..." He prods Sapphire, who looks at him. "Hasn't your dad returned from the Researcher's Conference already? I'd think he'd need you back home to help him out when he resumes his research."

Sapphire blinks, then pouts. It seems like she'd been trying to not think about it too much. "Yeah, it's true. He's back, and I gotta go back ta Littleroot pretty soon."

She's taken quite a lot of time off, he idly notes. If she wasn't Professor Birch's daughter, he doubts she'd have been allowed to spend a couple weeks just messing around.

"Oh. That... sucks."

"Yeah..."

Sceptile coos sadly,as he listens to their conversation. Toro merely gives the grass-type an apologetic smile.

"I'd tell you to consider a computer job like me, but then I remembered this was you we're talking about." Emerald chuckles.

"Hey, I like helpin' my Papa with research!" Sapphire says defensively. "I get ta camp out in caves and trees and lakes while getting info on pokemon habitats."

"...I'm not going to ask about how you'd camp in a lake." He's suddenly extra grateful for his desk job. "But... you gotta leave soon, huh?"

Sapphire nods regrettably, leaning her head on Toro's feathery shoulder. The blaziken pats her leg comfortingly.

"Yeah. In a day or two."

Emerald isn't sure about how to feel about it. He'll naturally miss hanging out with her so often, but he can always drop her a call. That's what's different now; he finally has the courage to contact her. He knows that she doesn't bear a grudge for those years of radio silence, and just knowing that has set him free, in a way. Just knowing that they could meet up again any time and hang out like they've been doing makes him see the near future in a positive light.

That aside, his newfound confidence would keep him from being wallowing in his own problems without her there. The Frontier Brains had been completely open to him hanging out with them for dinner any time, and the Trick Master had given him a call recently to let him know that he's back in Hoenn for a while. Emerald had even secretly been considering going out without his stilts for once, though perhaps that's more of a long-term plan.

"I'll definitely come visit ya often, though, so don't worry!" Sapphire pipes up. "And ya got my pokenav number, too."

He regards her fondly. She's always thinking about him. He could do the same.

"Actually, how about I drop by Littleroot sometime? It's only fair."

Sapphire looks almost as surprised as he feels. Even Sceptile tilts his head at him, curious.

"Eh? Ya'd be willin' ta go that far out?"

Maybe not a few weeks ago, but by now, Emerald's grown adventurous. All that time in one place had unconsciously made him restless, giving him an itch that only travelling can solve. A hermit, he is no longer.

"Of course." He grins at her. "I mean, you've come up all the way to Lilycove to see me. I can totally do the same thing, no problem."

Sapphire looks at him for a moment, bemused, before grinning back.

"Well, if it's alright with ya, then sure! I'd love to show ya around my place!" She does a sort of wiggle in her seat. "Ya can see my Papa's lab, and my house, and the secret base that Ruby and I hang out in!"

"I'm not sure if I want to go to the last place, considering what you guys have probably done in there, but sure."

Sapphire merely nods away, looking ecstatic. He's glad for that; he doesn't want them to look forward to the day she leaves with overwhelming dread, or anything. This is just a start.

"Now that we have a plan, we gotta celebrate!" Sapphire pulls out her bag from between the couch cushions and Sceptile's tail, and a dozen more pokeblocks fall out of it. "More treats fer everyone!"

All the pokemon caw, chirp and bleat happily, swiping up the colorful cube-shaped snacks faster than he can keep track of them. Sapphire pops a few pink pokeblocks into her mouth herself. He gives her an exasperated look.

"...You're still doing that?"

"Why not? I've always been eatin' pokeblocks! They're great!"

It's even worse than he thought.

"Oh man."

Sceptile chuffs at him, rolling his amber eyes as he chews away.

"Are ya sure ya don't want ta try just one, Emerald?" Sapphire grabs a handful of green pokeblocks from the recesses of her bag and holds them out to him. "Like, not even once?"

He eyes her hand suspiciously. "Um, why?"

"I mean... it's just that since I'm leavin' soon, and all..." She deflates a bit. "And I saved a ton of green ones for ya."

Emerald groans.

"Jeez."

"Huh?"

"Fine. I'll try one."

She lights up instantly, and drops a single green pokeblock into his open palm.

He examines the thing. It's almost perfectly square, and doesn't crumble all over the place, indicative of its quality. The thing probably won't kill him, seeing how Sapphire apparently eats these on a regular basis. He'll admit Ruby is, indeed, extremely good at that Contest stuff– the pokeblocks he makes must be top-notch, since his pokemon are winners of multiple contests– so maybe it won't actually taste so bad? Sceptile seems to like them.

"I saved ya all the green ones 'coz the thing on yer face is green, and ya seem ta like the color green!" Sapphire seems quite proud of herself for that deduction.

"I don't think the color of the pokeblock is the problem here... but thanks, I suppose."

"I even thought, with the extra green color, it might even make yer face thing glow. Isn't that cool?" Sapphire reaches over to poke the gem on his forehead, and he swats her hand away.

"Idesperately hope that doesn't happen."

Staring intensely at the little block, he decides to finally get it over with. He holds it delicately to his lips, and after a moment of hesitation, nibbles a bit off the corner.

It tastes like…. berries.

A lum berry, to be exact. It's a rarer breed of berry, and he's not sure how Ruby had gotten ahold of one (or how he'd react knowing Sapphire had stolen it from him), but the bitterness flooding his mouth is unmistakeable.

He likes bitter food. He finds himself scarfing it down.

By the time he's done, he feels like he's lost something important.

"I'm beyond saving by this point," Emerald laments.

Sapphire only laughs, urging him to try another, but he refuses. His own pokemon snicker away at him, and he spends the next few hours of the cartoon marathon trying to bat away Sudowoodo's arm whenever she tries to feed him another pokeblock. Sceptile can't stop huffing in laughter.

They all sit together, episode after episode of that dumb mecha show playing in the background as the pokeblock-eaters welcome yet another member into their ranks. It's such a strange place to be in, but Emerald would be lying if he said he disliked it. It was pretty cool, really, to be able to hang out with both his pokemon and Sapphire.

People and pokemon may be different, but maybe not as much as he thinks they are.

xxx

Hey Emerald.

Thanks for looking after Sapphire for me. I didn't think you'd actually do it, but you did! Sapphire's really happy, you know.

I have a lot of things to tell her, but now isn't the right time. I'm sorry I got you so wrapped up in our problems.

To thank you, if it's alright, how about we all go out together some time? Maybe lunch and a contest in Lilycove. Would you be okay hanging out with us now? It'll be my treat, I promise.

Got you a Pokeradar, by the way~! The classiest model to date. It'll really match that whole tinkerer aesthetic you have going on, you know, so I can't wait to see you try it on. Couldn't find green though, so I hope you're okay with blue~~~!

Love,

Ruby

xxx

They're at the front door. Emerald had convinced her to use it instead of the window like a normal person. She's clutching the S-Shooter close to her hip; he's both flattered at how much she likes it, and irritated at how she's holding it by the barrel instead of the handle again. But he doesn't feel like chiding her this time, now that she's about to leave.

"I gotta go and apologize ta him in person." Sapphire says resolutely. Though she'd been giving the flamboyant coordinator a few calls recently, she'd kept on telling Emerald about how it was important to clear things up face-to-face. She's oddly admirable like that.

"You do," Emerald agrees, tearing his eyes away from her incorrect grip (he'll show her another time), "though he has things to apologize for, too."

"Ya damn right!"

"And if he doesn't, well, use that." He gestures towards the water gun. "Or if that doesn't work, bring him to me, if you want."

She cocks her head. "Really?"

"…Really."

Sapphire beams at him.

"I'll be back."

"I'm well aware."

"Next time, I'll bring Ruby," she grins– and his heart plummets at the thought of both of them, together, in his house. Noticing the slump of his shoulders, she laughs, grabbing him and lifting him into an airborne embrace. His cheek is pressed to hers, and with his nose in her hair she smells like a mix of berries and the dirt he works with.

In his line of vision, Sceptile is staring smugly down at them.

"Next time, I'm nailing the windows shut." he grinds out, giving her a mock glare. She just laughs again, and after a moment's hesitation, presses a tight-lipped kiss on his cheek.

It's just a peck, really, but it's enough to daze him, feeling the slightest touch of her canines and soft lips on his skin. She sets him back down and he barely hears her rushed "See ya!" as she flies out the door.

Sceptile clucks inquiringly, and only then he realises that his face is aflame and his hand on his cheek.

"Heh."

He strides forward, grasping the doorknob; in the distance above, he sees her tropius' silhouette shrinking away before he shuts the door.

He's not sure whether he's the last resort or if he really has a chance, after all.

But he leaves his windows open.

xxx

Two days later, around midday, a screaming Ruby is hurled into his bedroom.

---

A/N:

Hello!

This fic is roughly 6 years old by now! Slightly cleaned up the draft before posting, but still old enough to be written way before ORAS, which might make this fic an AU of sorts– although Emerald learns to care for Pokemon again after his namesake arc, he remains estranged from Ruby and Sapphire and people in general. So he's as sharp-tongued towards them as he was then. This is in contrast to how he's a genuinely caring friend to them both in ORAS, helping Ruby lie to Sapphire in order to protect her, even if it ended up driving a wedge of distrust between them once she found out.

(…Then again, if I recall correctly, ORAS takes place roughly 3-6 years after the Emerald arc. This fic takes place 2 years after the Emerald arc. So… if Emerald just takes a little longer to warm up to his fellow Hoenn dexholders, this fic actually isn't that AU-ish after all?)

I'd first written this fic on a whim, but after years of swimming in headcanon, I am now in serious need more of Emerald and Sapphire interacting. The Ruby and Emerald bonding in ORAS was insanely cute, but why can't Sapphire get in on these cute friends-bonding scenes? Sapphire had once been a semi-protagonist too. I didn't expect ORAS to share the RS arc's near 50-50 equal screentime for Ruby and Saph, but man, I just want more wild gal and Rald hanging out…

Anyway, as much as I love him, I know Emerald isn't the most popular Spe character ever (and IMO, neither is Sapphire by her lonesome), so if you've read this fic up to this point, I'm absolutely delighted. Thanks for sticking with me! Again, quite an old fic, but I hope after 6 years and 50+ pages on Word, that this fic was worth the read.

I bought a copy of ORAS volume 2 a day ago because of how cute the Hoenn kids looked on the cover, so I'll be re-reading it now. Seeya!