Written By: Kenocka
072. Fixed: Relief
Disclaimer: Anything that doesn't sound like it belongs in Pokémon is MINE. Lévànce is MINE, Sebastian is MINE. Let me find out you took them.
Summary: A phone call can do wonders for one's state of mind.
Lévànce didn't keep track of how long it had been since Sebastian had called and told him to quit his journey but he guessed it to be almost two months, if not more. The man had managed to capture his fifth gym badge already. There was no doubt in the trainer's mind that when the phone rang again it would be the last time he would hear Sebastian's voice. For all the time spent waiting the model had done his homework and called his agent to make sure of when his contract ended and what exactly was included in it: win the major contests in Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn and the leagues in those regions as well, Battle Frontier not included. Several texts and voice messages were left on Sebastian's phone but a response hadn't been detected yet.
Had he not told the Pokémon Center's Joy that he'd been staying at when the midnight call had taken place to back off – in more vulgar terms of course – then he wouldn't have been kicked out and could have stayed a few extra days to wait for his lover's response. As it was the last two Joy's he'd spoken to had been cold and unwilling to let him stay at their Centers for more than a day if possible. Now he was forced to rent out cheap motel rooms – he refused to let his agent get him a better hotel out of fear of what had happened becoming known and a media circus – and pray that the Internet wouldn't cut out in the middle of the night and make him miss the call he was already dreading.
His cell phone was vibrating while he was in the shower. Lévànce nearly broke his neck tumbling out into his hotel room to get to it. The caller ID showed up as "Bast." Sebastian was calling! The trainer wasted no time in answering it.
"Sebastian! I'm sorry if I haven't been able to get in touch with you. I told a Nurse Joy to fuck off and the Centers haven't been letting me stay for any longer than a day so I couldn't use their superfast Internet access – "
"I'll stay with you." The sound of a relieved thump as Lévànce fell against the wall brought a smile to Sebastian's face. "The only thing is that we've got to live in a city."
"Love, I have a Charizard. No matter how lenient the apartment they're not going to let a dragon roost there. I've got at least twenty other Pokémon as well so the only way for me to see all of them is to open up a ranch."
There was a pause as the stripper stopped to think on this. His voice didn't seem to convey that he knew a ranch wasn't a weekend venture but a twenty-four hour job. "I could teleport you! And I don't want to live in apartments anymore. I want a condo, a big one."
"You're willing to train as often and as hard as what you'll have to in order to teleport both of our combined weights ten or more miles?" There was a reason for the dubiousness in Lévànce's voice. Sebastian was one of those rare psychics who didn't train all the time to perfect their extrasensory powers and they were much weaker than what his teachers would have wanted. 'And you want me to buy two houses!'
"Well… yeah, I'll start training right now but I was hoping that we could depend on your friend Marcus for that kind of stuff seeing as how he shows up whenever and does just about whatever you tell him. He's a heavy lifter kind of man from what I can tell."
Having sunk to the floor in relief – and not caring that he was creating a huge puddle on the cheap carpet – Lévànce laughed at Sebastian's sense of practicality. "He does what I tell him to because I pay him."
"What the hell kinda friend is that?"
"The kind who does very dangerous bodyguard work for very rich people for many, many monies." The trainer rolled his eyes when he thought of the number of times that he could count that Marcus had ever done anything for free: None. "Whenever I whistle him up he's losing money from whatever contract he's working with at the moment and I have to pay that back, sometimes with interest. He's not cheap because of how powerful he is. I thought you two talked about his job once?"
"He told me he got by doing odd jobs not that he was a bodyguard!" Unseen he shook his head at this new information. Lévànce always met the strangest people. "I've got where we'll live all figured out too if you're okay with it. I even factored in your ranch according to this map I scribbled on in front of me."
"Well I'm going to be awake for a while so tell me your ideas and we'll hammer out the details later on." The adrenaline was going to keep him going for a while yet.
Why would Lévànce need the Internet for a phone call? Well let's remember that in the Pokémon world every talks or seems to talk on a kind of video phone/PC with keyboards set in front of them. I'm using some artistic license here. Since the Pokémon Center's are hospitals they have to have the best and fastest ISPs available. It's probably cable because honestly DSL phone lines pale in comparison.