Steven Stone sat, stony-faced with deadened eyes, at his work desk.
Hands, splayed with a stack of Devon-headlined documents neatly lined between the forearms, stretched out long, sturdy fingers. Wearied of work and itching to do anything else but hold a fountain pen and thumb through papers, they thrummed unhappily under the pressure of unfinished paperwork.
How on earth was there so much paperwork left undone?
...With Devon Corp's flight-happy President taking off as and when he liked without so much as a word of warning to neither his staff nor his exasperated son from miles away, that was how.
And said exasperated son from miles away was served a most unpleasant side of, "President Stone has gone away, again... and we have documents that urgently need signing," the very next morning along with his coffee.
Never mind that his girlfriend had been with him throughout the whole time, in what was supposed to be their private spot at what was supposed to be one of the region's lesser-known cafeterias during what was supposed to be breakfast.
But that was all, wasn't it? Document signed. Fountain pen capped. Obligatory smile flashed. Done.
He'd thought that would be the end of it, only to realize that that was but the start to a very, very long day.
"Sign here please, Sir."
"Sir, this document needs your attention. And signature too."
Escaping to the sanctuary of his house in Mossdeep City had not helped. He had had to give up May's adoring company to tend to another well-neglected company after its hapless employees had dogged his tracks all the way to cram their pleading faces into his doorway.
"We're terribly sorry, Sir, but we're going to need you to stand in for the President during the board meeting later. No- make that three more meetings. Actually, shall we clear out the President's office so that you may settle in more comfortably?"
By that, they really meant for him to hustle up a permanent nest for himself right here, in the middle of the embarrassing paperwork-and-technology chaos his father had the cheek to call 'his office'. As a matter of fact, the neatest part of it had been the side of the room where he always kept his collection of stones and minerals immaculately displayed within its glass casing. It had made his stay at Devon Corp tolerable... while he was under the sorely mistaken impression then that he would be allowed off its premises by the end of twenty-four hours.
That was nearly a month ago.
Over the period of twenty-odd days, he had all but moved himself, his Pokemon as well as other daily necessities into Devon Corp's topmost storey while his girlfriend had moved herself and her own team of Pokemon out of Hoenn entirely.
No, May wasn't mad at him...
Far from it, in reality. After all, she'd been the one to drop a very unhappy him off at Devon Corp's rooftop with all of his stuff before zooming off on Altaria's fluffy back, grinning from ear to ear the whole time in fervor of 'a casual spot of exploring away and beyond'...
He'd barely heard from her since.
Everyone, meet Steven Stone, May Maple's severely-neglected, sorry-looking boyfriend who was currently stuck at work with only the company of rocks and frazzled human beings, no thanks to his flighty weirdo of a father.
Pushing his unwashed face into the palm of an outstretched hand, Steven groaned.
Seriously, his father was going to be the death of him. And his relationship, after it had taken him so much and so long to finally get into one with the girl of his living dreams and sleepless nights.
May Maple. May...
He clearly remembered that exact moment when he had confessed romantically to her, hardly for its sweet nature but only because his dear old man had embarrassed him into doing it.
She had been seventeen then. Two whole years older than her fifteen years when they had first encountered one another in that drab old cave back at Dewford Town but that did nothing to alter the fact that she was, and would always be, eight years younger than him. Gods, he shouldn't have been made to feel as old as he did back then at his relatively young age of twenty-five!
Twenty-five years old and stubbornly single in his long wait for the supposed perfect moment when he would finally, officially ask her out...
Only to have it unceremoniously shoved into his face on that day when he'd happened to have an unknowing May in his company at the same time his father had asked to see him in his office.
He'd let May tag along, in spite of her politely offering to wait out in the reception area.
What harm would it do? His father had already met May, numerous times on top of their very first encounter, and liked her.
Perhaps, a little too much…
"Stevie, my boy- Don't bother with the knocking and just get in here!" Came Mr. Stone's hilariously enthused greeting over his work desk, which sent goosebumps erupting across Steven's skin beneath his clothing from hearing himself being addressed by his childhood nickname, the same one that his father absolutely refused to stop using on him despite him having outgrown it years, and years, and years ago.
"...Dad!" Steven bit out curtly in controlled frustration but inwardly screamed. "May's here." Clearing his throat with unnecessary vigor, he attempted to redirect said parent's attention to the other arrival in their midst with a polite tilt of his head while angling his body so that her recognizably petite figure showed.
"May Maple! How absolutely lovely you have grown! What brings you here today, my dear?"
"Hello, Mr. Stone." Returning his enthusiasm with a polite smile, May wondered if she ought to be spilling the beans about how she'd gotten to be in Steven's company, and subsequently, here. A sneak peek at Steven's face, green with discomfit, was enough to advise otherwise. "We just happened to meet outside."
At the charming sight of young May shyly poking her head around Steven's back, with the rest of her body quickly following suit to stand at his son's shoulder, Mr. Stone could care less about the mounting paperwork left undone and threatening to spill right over the edge of his work desk. Instead, he beckoned eagerly to the girl, spinning away from his desk in his swivel chair to face her when she approached under encouraging looks from both father and son.
"Well, it's always lovely to have you here. Tell me, is your PokeNav working out swimmingly? Any woes or worries?" Left to his own devices where he still stood in the middle of the office space, Steven very deliberately rolled his eyes at his father shamelessly attempting casual talk with a pretty girl. So much for calling him over on business...
"No, none at all. It works perfectly well."
"How so, for you?"
May's smiling face softened as she spoke, although it went unnoticed to Steven behind her. "It keeps me connected to the people I hold dear."
Behind her, Steven though he might just faint on the spot from the sweetness of her words, had she been directing them at him in the first place.
Well, one could hope. He, Steven Stone, certainly had been hoping for a very long time.
"...And it makes me so happy to be one of them!" Hearing his father's exclamation in delightful response to May's words jolted him right out of his brief reverie. Eager to put an end to their fairly disturbing conversation before it should begin its irrevocable spiral into the realm of nauseating, he stepped decidedly forward while readying his protest, "Dad-"
"-Well! What do you think, son?"
"About what?"
Peering past a confused-looking May to the back, Mr. Stone waggled bushy, greying brows between her and his approaching son. "About getting a new mother, of course!"
Choking on something of a cross between his own saliva and lack of words, Steven sputtered, eyes bulging and limbs flailing, "...Dad!"
"Joke! It's a joke!" Confronting his son's agitated reaction with a sheepish smile, he raised both hands in immediate relent as the younger Stone hurried forward to snatch his even younger companion away from him before any more could be said. Poor, traumatized May looked as though all mental capacity had drained from her body where she swayed on her feet between father and son.
"Joke?"
"Joke!"
"Well, it wasn't funny!" Steven's audibly frenzied voice neared screaming where it rang out somewhere above the top of May's head. "Why on earth possessed you to pull something like that on... on May?"
"Well, you weren't making a move so...-"
My god, you knew about it? Too? "My god, Dad!" Similarly blue-grey eyes glared so widely that he felt the muscles pull in their sockets. "I was going to make a move, alright? Just... not now!" He hissed through gritted teeth in an almost whisper. And certainly not in front of you!
Unfazed, the older Stone leaned into the back of his swivel chair with much aggravating deliberation that grated on Steven's nerves way harder than the careless manner in which he asked, "What are you waiting for then?"
"...Um... Sir...?" Came and went May's little squeak of attempted attention-vying where she still dithered between the two men who were currently yelling away at each other.
"What am I- I'm waiting for the perfect time!"
Conflicted between nodding in approval at his son's romanticism and giving him a good old noogie over the top of his head, Mr. Stone reached for the classic deadpan snark. "You've been going on and on about that for ages with absolutely nothing to show for it. Why not make 'that' right now?"
"...S-Steven..." A fiercely reddening May quailed under the magnitude of said individual's shriek of, "...Right now?"
"Right now!" Mr. Stone emphasized while blinking innocent eyes, as if it wasn't the hardest thing ever for a person to randomly turn around and confess romantically to the object of his affection while she stood right there, right...
"...now..."
At that moment, Mr. Stone truly could not tell who was blushing the hardest between the two. His poor, verbally and romantically inept son or adorable, obviously confused yet elated May.
...In hindsight, it'd probably been him.
Gah! What an embarrassment he must have appeared to May then! Whatever had possessed her to move on from that fiasco to turning up on their first official date, he did not know but remained thankful for anyway. Things had progressed quickly from that point, with their relationship undergoing major upheaval.
Suddenly, he was no longer simply Steven Stone, reigning Champion of Hoenn's Pokemon League, undisputed leader of the Elite Four and May Maple's occasional mentor. That fateful afternoon had added few more labels onto his eager self, on top of his existing ones.
Following their very first date, he became Steven Stone anew, May's newly-minted boyfriend, Wallace's and the Elite Four's subject of much teasing and Norman's eyesore.
Honestly, May's parents had been largely involved in his longtime deliberation over their changing relationship. How could they not be, with their fifteen-year-old daughter, and only child, developing a massive crush on an adult male who had come out of absolutely nowhere and was a good eight years older than she was. It had to be equally worrisome for them to learn off the grapevine, of all available sources, that that same man reciprocated those feelings.
Mothering aside, Petra had been fairly accepting of her daughter's emotional maturity and romance. Her husband? Hardly.
Norman had blown his top when he first learnt about their relationship. Forget all the effort that mother and daughter had both taken in precautionary advance before sitting him down and breaking the supposedly happy news to him. The man had nearly bitten his own tongue right off inside his mouth chewing poor May out over her lapse of judgment, which had Steven wondering, in hindsight, exactly how he had ended up leaving such a bad impression on a complete stranger.
Well, Norman showing up at his home in Mossdeep City to find his only daughter and her overaged eyesore of a boyfriend 'entwined in vulgar embrace', was how.
...He and May had simply been sitting, arm's length apart, on the same couch that time though...
Letting an awkward smile spread across his face, he recalled how quickly, and discreetly, they had released previously linked hands under the cover of certain well-placed cushions while May's father distracted himself with his ranting.
Subsequent to that fiasco, he and May had grown less inclined to exhibiting the same sort of openness with their relationship, especially in the company of others. The indelible fact that they were both public figures well known across the Hoenn region did little to better their predicament. After all, he had yet to relinquish his positions as both the reigning Champion of the regional Pokemon League and sole heir to Devon Corporation while she was widely famed for having once tamed legendary Pokemon in a stupendous feat that saved everyone and everything in existence. No matter where they went or what they did, there was no avoiding the gawking and finger-pointing from spectators therefore, they were forced to improvise around their impositions.
Dating continued in utmost privacy at either his house or May's secret base, away from the watchful eyes of deeply distrusting parents on top of meddlesome friends whose voyeuristic tendencies were beginning to get out of hand. As a direct result of their antics, he had had his Claydol out of its Pokeball and erecting Light Screen over their location wherever they ventured. Under its protective cover, they were practically invisible. Safely contained within its energy barrier, their privacy was rendered impenetrable with their dates unfolding, undisrupted and whole. It was a nifty little trick that May had cleverly observed from the twins, Tate and Liza, during battle and wasted no time roping him into experimenting with it.
Never mind that he had been in the shower when she had barged into his house then and laid unwitting eyes on more than he would have liked to show...
But he doubted she cared anyway, given how she had promptly thrown a towel in his direction without further... reaction beyond hustling him into unleashing his Pokemon into the cramped confines of his living room. How utterly confused Claydol must have been when it burst out of its Pokeball to awkwardly face its dripping wet, half-naked Trainer as well as his oddly-colored girlfriend.
A hastily-uttered command, aside from lots of blushing, was all it had taken for realization to settle in.
It worked! That little trick actually worked out for them, fantastically so.
For a good period of time, it had accommodated their dating needs. Beautifully, and even going to the extent of allowing the occasional date outdoors until paparazzi started showing up pretty much everywhere, to their chagrin.
...Well, it had been good while it had lasted.
In all honesty, it hadn't been that bad. Certainly not as bad as he was making it out to be, now.
Sure, he would be lying if he were to insist that he hadn't felt stifled by the near constant need to be indoors when the great outdoors beckoned so eagerly however, the appeal of staying away from the prying eyes of people, who had no business minding others' business, was irresistible. Because, despite appearances and first impressions, Steven Stone was never much of a social butterfly to begin with. Mostly preferring the company of rocks, Pokemon and few people he found pleasing enough to keep around, he had remained unchanged throughout passing years, simply because there was nothing about his daily life, seeking out rare Pokemon and collecting rocks, that warranted change of any sort until he became romantically involved with May.
Contrary to himself, she was the social one. Flitting from flower to flower in an entire field, she never failed to bring sunshine to whoever happened to be in her presence. She enjoyed being with people and people enjoyed being with her. Everyone, who was anyone, liked her upon meeting her and liked meeting her, so much so that he had worried himself sleepless over a span of several excruciating nights wondering just how badly she would take going underground with their relationship.
As it quickly turned out, all that insomniac worrying had been for naught because not only was she the sociable one of them two, she was also the flexible one.
Enlivened in human company, she was equally comfortable in solitude, apparently welcoming it after having incidentally been scared into hiding by the sheer amount of attention she had inadvertently attracted in turning up alone on a date for which he had happened to be late.
"Don't come here, Steven! I repeat, do not, do not, do not come here! It's crazy out here! There're reporters everywhere, waiting to eat you alive. They will eat us alive. Oh my gosh... they are going to eat my boyfriend alive!" Recalling her frantic voice screaming over their PokeNav call still brought a chuckle surfacing till today.
Staring blankly into still unfinished paperwork, Steven let the vibrancy of color and familiar imagery wash over the ink and paper as a fresh wave of memories came crashing into his head.
So yes, they ended up taking their relationship underground. Entirely so.
They also ended up doing a whole bunch of other stuff in the meanwhile, Steven Stone and May Maple. She'd ended up buying more furniture, in the form of fluffy Pokemon-shaped beanbags and cooking appliances, while he'd ended up shifting his existing belongings around in order to free up much-needed space for her new purchases. Stone collections took a backseat in favor of a brand new dining table on which May piled her best cooking.
She was... far from inadequate.
He'd always been rather capable of feeding himself, whether at home or outdoors but what she did, often with the most unassuming of ingredients, in his tiny kitchen was nothing short of mouth-wateringly... good! And it only got better over the many dates that took place under his roof, to the extent of having his own Pokemon out of their Pokeballs and eagerly crowding the table in anticipation whenever May turned up at his door with a basketful of ingredients.
In between Pokemon battling before meals and cozy afternoon naps after, May was perfectly comfortable with being left to her own devices whenever he got busy. She would freely entertain herself with whatever she unearthed from the modest, rock-cluttered depths of his house, so long as it didn't involve encyclopedias and more rocks- "They're minerals!" He would always exclaim in vehement protestation to her cheeky insistence otherwise.
They would argue about it for few heated minutes in her signature playful manner before he let himself be decidedly distracted by his adoring girlfriend throwing herself into his arms. Not only did it put an immediate end to their mock squabble, it also opened the door to lots of warm cuddling in its wake.
For a good three years, they carried on dating in this manner. All had gone swimmingly. Then, May turned twenty and life after that day seemed to perpetually be on hard mode for him.
...Literally.
With a girlfriend like her, it'd be hard not to be. Especially since she had always been lovable.
May Maple, at fifteen years of age, had been adorable enough then with her visibly rounder face and sprinkling of baby hair around her temples, both of which she had yet to grow into.
In two short years however, she had managed just that.
Having outgrown her previously smaller stature to properly stand at his chest level, as opposed to simply grazing it, seventeen-year-old May had appeared taller and fitter than he remembered her. Prettier, too, in Steven Stone's newly discerning eyes, with longer and fuller locks.
If teenaged May Maple had been pretty, twenty-year-old May Maple was, for lack of better vocabulary, attractive.
Hazel brown hair framed a face that was luminescent in its elegant contouring upon shedding the lingering last of baby fat. Facial features, achieving visual perfection through the passage of time, appeared softly aglow with girlish tendencies yet evoked femininity at its most mature and inviting. While time had elongated spindly teenager's limbs into those of a young adult woman's, near constant physical activity combined with a bodily demanding lifestyle had sculpted them into supple, muscled epitomes of beauty and youthful vitality.
No, Steven Stone wasn't being biased.
And yes, one would do well to not to be taken in by her petite frame.
Despite their unassumingly frail appearance beneath the tightness of her clothing, those very limbs were more than capable of physically restraining, even subduing, a grown man like himself. His adorable, deceptively harmless-looking girlfriend had clearly demonstrated her physical prowess as well as her willingness to unleash it, over several instances, on those unfortunate enough to find themselves victimized. He, Steven Stone, was testament to that claim only because he had been on the receiving of her play-fighting so, so many times whenever May would try to wrestle him out of winning an argument, which had, more often than not, ended up with him wrestling back something else in bodily response...
Without mincing words, that would be his control.
Control, which he had been keeping just below his skin as it simmered in heated anticipation of her eventually growing into maturity.
As of last fall, May was... twenty and few months old while he was twenty-eight and few months shy. They were finally equal in adulthood, equal in physical compatibility and equally capable of... accommodating the needs of two... as opposed to just one.
With the dismantling of their age barrier, alongside parental considerations, they were free to help themselves to one another.
Needless to say, they had done... stuff. Stuff that didn't necessarily overstep intimacy into irrevocability but definitely did toe that dangerously fine line in between. Stuff that had both he and May coming to awkward acknowledgment about certain passions as well as the foreseeable consequences of them before venturing into action.
Stuff that... had him putting his foot down in unhappy, most unwilling rejection of May's amorous advances whenever they... got too close to overwhelming.
To think that he had once thought of his control as indomitable! He was putty at May's disposal the moment she wrapped her arms around the nape of his neck and pulled her slender, supple body close to his muscled, excitable one. And she knew.
How she knew, he knew not. But she knew.
She knew exactly what to do, and how to do it, to test his limits to the extreme. With age, and seduced by the privacy of their living and dating circumstances, she'd only gotten more adventurous, more confident, more... alluring.
Firstly, establish physical contact. Keep it simple. Nothing more than a light grazing of hands or a nonplussed tangling of legs at the feet.
Secondly, a guileless round of cuddling, or two, to lower his defenses (that weren't stacked very high in the first place anyway). Sometimes on his carpeted floor, sometimes in the middle of casual conversation on his couch.
Pretty much all the time, it would lead to the drawing of visibly longing faces close. Close enough to have equally yearning lips hover wetly over one another in teasing anticipation. Neither would be first to cave before the other did, in sheer desperation to be closer still.
Such was the game of pride they insisted on playing each time despite desirous intent.
Most of the times, May would be first to cave, only because past experiences had sufficiently taught her that probability of Steven himself initiating further contact beyond innocent lip lock was dismal. Never a believer of the concept of less being more, May would jump at the first given opportunity of contact, be it lip or limb, in all literal sense of the word. And he would let her. He would let her be on top of him, to climb into his lap atop his unresisting body, to coyly trap him within her warm embrace while generously plying his face and neck with the softness of her lips.
Practice, she'd whispered in between her ministrations and his fevered responses to them. He hadn't let her practice enough when he had thought her too young for it, she'd breathe into his yearning mouth.
Well, practice makes perfect. They could all do with a bit more practice. And it was exactly this sort of thinking that soundly kicked the last of logic-fueled demur into the backseat in favor of lust-blurred love.
"...Agh..." Physically shaken by a series of intelligible noises he himself made while choking on saliva he had not managed to entirely swallow, Steven Stone squeezed tired eyes tightly shut and threw his head back into his chair's headrest. His dominant hand unclenched, releasing its grip on his fountain pen and letting it clatter onto the tabletop. Absentmindedly, he flexed stiffened fingers. He hadn't realized how tightly he had been holding onto the contraption until it rolled out of his fingers. Blue-grey eyes, glazed over from zoning out, blinked successively in a weak attempt at fully banishing all... delicious imagery from his mind.
Imagery of his girlfriend writhing passionately underneath his unyielding weight, tousled hair fanned out beneath her tossing head, clothes bunching up in the dips along her curves to reveal generous portions of light honey-toned tan and skin…
Groaning aloud as his frustration hit previously unexplored levels of physical discomfit, Steven Stone retracted his hands from the tabletop to grab at his head. Agonised fingers dug into his scalp, bending crooked spikes of hair further out of shape.
What would he give to be with May right here, right now!
It seemed entirely inconceivable that he had survived all those years in the past, watching from the sidelines while secretly harbouring a crush on her, when he barely found the past twenty-odd days tolerable as it was?
Inconceivable. But doable.
With sleep and lots of… reminiscing, it was entirely doable.
Until Steven Stone, alongside the poor, hassled staff of Devon Corp found their president and physically dragged him back to sit in this very chair, he was just going to have to make do.