They had been sitting under the shade of the trees for a little over three hours.

"You know I won't think of you any differently, right?" Leon stared Raihan down. The sun was beaming. Outside of the city, the wild area was quiet beyond the distant chirps of pokemon hidden in the grass.

If Leon allowed himself to stare, the more he could make out the rippling patterns of scales rising and sinking over Raihan's skin. His pupils expanded and slit sporadically with every shift of the sun on his face.

The longer Raihan tried to sit still, the more he twitched.

Leon sighed and turned away, twisting to cross his legs with his back to his friend. "Will it help if I'm not looking?" He asked. It would be disappointing not to watch, but if it made Raihan more comfortable he would. He wouldn't even complain.

There was a telltale scraping sound. Leon wished Raihan would just shift already. He couldn't imagine how itchy it must all be, forcing your true skin to form and reform over and over. Like a constant tickle you couldn't scratch.

"It's not that," Raihan grumbled. The noise edged into a whiny growl and even louder scraping. "It's not– it's not like I think you'd–" A low hissing noise, a ripping of grass. Leon very helpfully did not jump when he felt the smooth touch of scaled skin against his arm. Raihan still jerked back the moment he brushed him, but when Leon showed no signs of reacting he was rewarded with a dark tail flopping into the grass beside him. It was almost in his lap. If he focused, Leon swore he could feel the heat radiating off of it.

He wanted so badly to touch it. But Leon couldn't. Wouldn't. Raihan trusted him to wait until he was comfortable. Leon was a man of poise and restraint.

More ripping, more scraping– Leon forced himself to avert his eyes as the tips of dark claws edged into the corner of his vision. It was only the nervous way Raihan plucked at the grass under his palms that stopped him from just reaching out. It didn't, however, do anything to reduce how Leon was left wanting.

A low, annoyed huff bit out of his friend. Leon watched the shadow slowly stretching in front of him grow taller. The tail by his side swayed and wagged like a cat's, every so often barely grazing Leon's thigh. Burning hot even through his leggings.

The champion was a figure of grace, of composure, of control. Someone others could look up to. Someone Raihan could trust not to give in and look (and touch, Arceus, fuck, it was killing him to not touch–) before he was ready.

"It's embarrassing," Raihan grumbled, as if Leon wasn't about to be so much more embarrassing right then and there if he didn't touch him. The champion was nearly vibrating. "I didn't even mean for you to find me. This is– No offense, but just because you're fine with me not being human doesn't mean I want you to watch me playing– having– doing this."

A champion did not pout. Leon was starting to think he was due to resign from his role.

It would probably be selfish if Leon said "but I want to watch". Whether it was the truth or not. Raihan would not find that helpful. No one, especially not someone as confident and cool as Raihan, should ever be embarrassed about their bodily functions or natural urges. He needed to be reassuring, say something to help. Something witty and encouraging. Something beyond just how he felt. Surely Raihan was more than aware that Leon saw pretty much endless positives to this…? Leon needed to hype him up, to show him it was okay.

"But I want to," Leon said, and promptly banged his head against his knees.

"Woah, hey, don't do that," Clawed fingers gently pressed into his hair. The delicate pointed tips skimming his scalp made a shiver go up his spine. Unaware of how his body was reacting to his touch, Raihan pressed a scaled palm to Leon's forehead and tugged him back from his kneecaps.

They were so smooth against his skin. Raihan's scales were so slippery compared to Charizard's, like rubbing pebbled glass. Leon shut his eyes and tried not to wiggle happily. He had the immediate and undeniable impulse to rub that hand against his cheeks. It was only Raihan pulling away that stopped him– only him talking that stopped Leon from making an embarrassingly whiny protest. "Anyway, what was that?"

Only Raihan was here, at his back. Leon gave up on whatever behavior was befitting a champion and fist-pumped to himself.

"I'm not gonna make fun of you," He said instead. "You're my–"

Friend. Why did that sound so shallow? Leon was maybe a little too distracted after all. Could he just turn and look yet? "I care about you. I don't want you to think I'd do something like laugh at you for just... being yourself."

Just the thought of it made Leon's blood boil. Just a little. Enough to surprise him, because he thought he was over stupid useless gestures like getting mad instead of doing something productive. "If someone laughed at you..." The grass ripped under Leon's hands and he slowly forced his fingers open. Raihan was already tense enough for the both of them, and it wasn't even over something that should have been important. Leon refused to add to that. No matter how he felt. "I'm not going to do that. You know I wouldn't, Rai."

(Didn't he?)

There was a long quiet. Leon watched the shadow hanging over him, still and silent against the flickers of dappled light. Despite how it towered above he felt nothing but calm. Raihan was less a predator and more a tall willow shading him. Huge and scaley and pretty stupid, sometimes, if Leon was going to be honest.

The weather really was perfect for sitting out in the Wild area that day.

"Leon." That heated touch again, smooth and pebbled– like hundreds of tiny stream-smoothed stones. A solid weight settled against the champion's back.

"...Leon," Raihan rumbled, curling around him. "Look at me."

Leon whipped around and cracked his head against Raihan's.

They both yelped, springing back. Leon groaned as he sprawled backward, hands clasped over his stinging forehead. He could already feel a bump forming. The grass shifted and Leon smiled through the pain as familiar hands gently helped him sit up, patting at his hands until he moved them. "This isn't fair," He complained, "You're all armored!" Scaled and horny. Literally. Leon frantically tried to focus on how he nearly got skewered by literal horns instead of something like what was in Raihan's pants– "I'm squishy, you know!"

He could hear Raihan huff, but it wasn't annoyed or irritated– unfair, frankly, he had both enough pain and embarrassment to last him the month.

(Leon couldn't help but be aware of how he had shattered something, spoiled an opportunity, somewhere–)

Raihan crawled forward, elbows propped on the grass and eyes pointedly flickering towards the stretch of skin where Leon's fall made his shirt ride up. He very much did not squirm, thank you. That slivered gaze was short and fast and not at all penetrating. Leon gave in and looked away. "You're the champion of the region and have beat me hundreds of times. I could wash my hoodie on your stomach. The day I call you squishy is the day I finally beat you into the pitch."

Careful fingers poked at his forehead and Leon begrudgingly looked up from the ground.

Raihan's face was terribly close. Leon's heart stuttered in its cage as bright cyan eyes traced the bump, pupils thinned into a line. The usually sleepy tilt to Raihan's expression always seemed to sharpen in battle– like a broadsword narrowed into a needle– and now it was right there. Alert and alive and very, very close to Leon's face. So close that Leon knew he'd be able to pick out every individual little scale, dark and peppered over Raihan's face, if only he'd manage to look away from his eyes.

Raihan's attention slipped, his eyes caught Leon's– and Leon took the excuse to snap his gaze elsewhere as if it would be enough to save him. Thank Arceus dragon blood didn't mean enhanced hearing, with how his heart decided today was a good time to explode.

It didn't land far. Leon gulped and carefully traced the familiar angles of Raihan's face. His eyes always took a familiar path. Easy and shameless to follow, eased from a decade of battles and camping. His face was remarkably scaleless compared to the rest of him– the thick plates small and scattered over the arch of his cheekbones, down his jaw like obsidian freckles. They seemed to sprout over the dips and rises of Raihan's bones. Naturally fading towards the soft skin of his cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth.

Familiar, and easy. Leon stared at the same face he had known for what felt like his entire life and continued to pretend he wasn't drowning.

"Leon," Raihan breathed, and Leon forcefully jerked his eyes away from where they had settled– as they always did– on Raihan's lips.

"You're just so cool," was what finally broke out of him. Abruptly, Leon felt like hiding. He wasn't entirely sure how everything was moving so quickly– from a day out, to an itch, to a laugh, to a flash of pain and a moment of tension and a second of frustration to– "You're so amazing I don't know what to do sometimes."

Raihan was free in ways Leon never could be. Free to escape to the wild area and bask in the sun and the sand, free to shed his skin, free to live in a way where the things he worried about were being laughed at. A whole dragon, and he was sitting here concerned over things like whether Leon of all people would find him something as ignorant and juvenile as embarrassing.

He is free, Leon surmised, drawing up his hands to trace those glossy black scales over Raihan's chin until he was left cradling the dragon's face still so painfully close to his. I can't understand why he doesn't think it's– he's– beautiful.

It was just a swim in the sand. Something to keep Raihan's hide polished and glossy, rubbing away the shed scales and dry patches. More than that, it was comforting. Even "stupid" things, Leon knew, could be things that connected you to your roots.

(Like his visits home. Like his time with Hop. Like now, sitting under the shade in the Wild Area with a friend when Leon knew Oleana hated him "wasting time". Didn't Raihan get it? Leon was trying to do his part, trying to protect him–)

The concept of Raihan trying to contain who and what he was, trying to hide and smother and blanket even the small and playfully harmless, made Leon want to cry. That was not who he was. Not who he was meant to be. Raihan was everything Leon couldn't afford to be, standing comfortably in his true skin and still just as beautiful. He was the only one to look at Leon and find him wanting.

"I think I'm in love with you," Leon blurted out, and froze.

He immediately let go of Raihan, yanking himself away as if having nicked himself. As if Raihan's perfect, marbled glass scales had ripped his fingertips open– "Leon–" Raihan gasped, reaching out. His eyes were huge. Leon watched through tunneling vision as his pupils expanded– as if the dragon was trying to swallow the sight of Leon whole– and managed to do little more to get away than stumble over Raihan's tail and end up flat on his back.

He barely had the time to even try to stand before Raihan was caging him to the grass. Scaled hands braced on either side of his head, the claws tips just barely tangling into Leon's sprawling hair. Bony knees dug into either side of his hips before Leon could even think about squirming away.

"Leon," Raihan growled, quiet and quick and furious, and Leon– tried. Tried to look away. To do anything other than stare, because even though his forehead was probably bruised and his eyes ached with tears and his lungs were tight Raihan was still so single-mindedly focused on him. As if there was nothing else to see.

(All that brilliance, boiling on the exposed surface of his skin like a sunburn, and it was staring at him like he was all there was to look at. What else was Leon supposed to do? He was only human.)

Raihan's breath was hot on his cheeks. Leon's mind caught up and he flushed a deep, dark, undeniable scarlet. "R-Raihan!" He yelped. It took a lot of control to stop himself from impulsively shooting to his feet and sprinting away– and not only because he knew it wouldn't help. Even scaley and winged, Raihan was lighter than Leon. It wouldn't be that hard if Leon decided to push him off, and Leon knew Raihan wouldn't use force if he truly wanted to get away.

Still.

Getting up was less than impossible at the moment. Not when Raihan's face was again, again, so damn close. Every scale, every lash countable, so close that it would take a fraction of a millisecond to just lean up and claim the dragon. "Rai–"

"Why would you run?" Raihan burst out. His headband did nothing to hide the way his expression crunched, twisting as if he was in pain. "Why would– you said, said you didn't– that..." Leon felt more than saw his tail lash, sweeping noisily through a tall swathe of grass. He couldn't look away. Even like this. "I didn't take you for a liar."

A champion did not snap, did not lose composure, and for the first time in a long one, Leon did not care.

It didn't matter if Raihan was joking. Honestly, Leon hoped he was serious, hoped Raihan would at least give him the honor of not pretending something like Leon lying about being in love with him was, what, funny? "You really think I would just..." He was at an honest loss, gaping up at the dragon. Fury bubbled up in him hot and fast. It hit him head-on like a bullet to the rib. Like a swallowed firecracker, ripping through his stomach.

Raihan's eyes glazed. A wall, a layer of cotton between Leon's next words and the world. A little armor for the bullet. It was all but invisible to anyone who wasn't Leon, who was the champion for a reason and a best friend for longer, and he felt like he wanted to bite down on something and scream.

Bitterness was almost even easier than anger. It came easier, smooth and familiar. "No, You're right. I was lying. I do think of you differently."

How could he not? It was a little hard to substitute the image Raihan held in his head with one of just his human form, anymore. No hulking secondary body, no sprawling wingspan and protruding horns, no thick claws that were so ceaselessly, relentlessly delicate every time they came within a breath of Leon– how could he not?

Somehow, he doubted Raihan was thinking anything close to the truth. Leon grabbed Raihan's face without any of the reserve he so carefully used before, and forced him to meet his eyes. Held him there, until the touch jerked Raihan back into actually seeing him. Leon wasn't sure he'd be able to say any of this twice.

"You," He said evenly, without room for any argument, "Are a dragon. You aren't human, not entirely– you're bigger than me, and have claws and a tail and scales and," Leon smirked, "An urge to go and wiggle in the sand for a bath, and sleep on warm rocks, and–"

Raihan abruptly shoved off of him, cheeks dark and heated, and made a crackling sort of yelp when Leon clung tightly to his front. He could pull back but there was nothing to stop Leon from coming with him– forcing them right back over until it was Raihan scrambling to not squish his wings under both their weight. "–and you hate the cold, and you like to play with chunks of obsidian like a skitty with a scratch post, and–"

"Leon!" Raihan's voice was delightfully squeaky. A scaled palm pressed futilely to Leon's face. He wasn't deterred in the slightest.

"–And you know what, you're right! You're different from everyone and anyone I've ever known! and you know what else?!" It was cheesy as all hell, it was dumb and stupid and embarrassing– but Leon was sick of pretending embarrassing always meant bad. Raihan turned such a lovely shade of red when Leon pressed his mouth against his palm, letting the dragon feel every word directly off his lips. "I think it's fantastic."

There was no going back now, and Leon couldn't care less. His heart beat wildly with the same thrill of a battle. It was all that kept him going, at that point. All that kept him from standing and running as fast he could, and maybe diving into the first pool of water he saw.

He needed Raihan to understand.

"Do you get it?" Leon whispered. "Can you hear me?"

Dragons had exceptionally good hearing. Leon had had enough of skirting and dancing and ignorant eyes.

Raihan didn't even try to stop him from leaning forward. Pressing and pressing, until the dragon's hand was all that kept their lips apart.

"I think you're fantastic," Leon repeated breathlessly.

This close, there was no missing the way Raihan's jaw clenched. As if pressing his lips tightly enough together meant he could manage to hide the tell-tale tremble of his mouth. When he finally spoke his voice was small. Uncharacteristically fragile for all that Raihan was anything but. "...Are you really in love with me?"

Insecurity wasn't a good look. Not on anyone. But right now, more than anything, it hurt. More than anything, Leon almost couldn't understand.

The champion was brilliant at arranging words into sentences. Ones that looked pretty and loud and bright in front of a crowd, or a camera.

Leon was still a boy from a small town in the countryside who fell in love with a dragon.

Raihan didn't protest when Leon gently tugged his hand out from between them. He didn't protest when Leon slid his hand down his wrist, didn't do more than let his fingers tighten around his when Leon held them. Nothing between them but scant centimeters of air. Vaguely, Leon registered that he was practically straddling Raihan.

It was embarrassing, it was cheesy, it was cliche. They technically fought over a dust bath. That must be the peak of stupid– Sonia was going to have a row when she heard. But Raihan's nose scrunched up and his tail thumped against the grass when Leon kissed his nose and that was worth it. "How could I not?" He said cheekily, "I'm the champion. Don't I deserve the biggest prize?"

Raihan flushed, yanking against Leon's grip with an expression hissing with indignation– and Leon happily just smothered it under another kiss. No amount of smugness or dumb jokes could stop Raihan from melting into it. Leon hummed giddily. The world fell a little darker, Raihan's wings reaching up to wrap down around him like a full-body hug. "M not a prize," his dragon grumbled.

Leon didn't care if he sounded high pitched or choked or childish. He laughed until Raihan pretended to push him away, and kissed him again.

still figuring out how to write them! its rough to deal with characters who have So Little Canon Substance ngl. also this turned out both shorter and longer than intended, and far more cheesy and cringey but then it was nearly sunrise and i was like Whatever

As always, you can find me over at my tumblr, Leviathiane.