massive time-skip ahoy!
Dragonite
ooo
It's familiar ground.
Quite literally, in fact – Gold remembers stepping out onto this same battle hall, and he remembers that medical treatment counter over on that side, and that last-minute supplies shop where he bought about two litres of quick-heal medicine, and he remembers the glare of the luminous purple floor and slippery feel of it under his running shoes. He remembers stepping out and waving to the crowd, just one more unknown challenger from an unknown town. One year of being Johto Champion, and everything's changed, himself and his friends and his red-haired mutual stalker – but nothing's changed here, not in the televised pan-national leagues. It's kind of nice. Gold thinks he probably prefers adventures and wandering into the great unknown, but he admits that it is kind of nice to see some familiarity now and again. It's nice to feel grounded – especially when the grounding element is the most important battling tournament of the year for not one, but two whole regions.
He remembers Silver in the tunnels of Victory Road. That was last year. (This year, it was Silver on the steps of the league building, a warm-up battle before the real games started.)
Figuratively, he's done it all before. Last year's Johto Champion. Still a teenager, and he's Made It. There are some moments – this one right now, for instance – where Gold feels unbearably old, as if his successes and memories have jaded him unnaturally, where the flashes of photographers and screams of fans and journalists have gone from new to interesting to old and finally to… nothing.
But those moments pass quickly. It's the joy of battling that Gold's here for, and the exhilaration of winning (and losing). Sometimes all that is easier to find without a crowd watching you – when it's only Silver watching you – but Gold thinks, he was born to be the centre of attention. What other destiny could he have, if not to be the Best? How else could he possibly have played the game?
He shakes his head and grins at Dragonite.
"Ready?" he says to her.
She nods, stamping the ground impatiently. (She's still not quite used to having arms and legs and wings.)
ooo
Gold is pretty much incapable of multitasking – he focuses on one thing, and one thing only. Dragonite likes that. But, she thinks with a touch of irritation, he needs to get the fuck over whatever's distracting him and concentrate, just this once. Too much hesitation, too much uncertainty; she should have taken Will's Bronzong down five minutes ago.
Finally, she sets off an earthquake, placing the fault line perfectly (the crowd goes wild) and the Bronzong collapses. She stumbles over to Gold – god, she's heard that gravity intensification was horrible for flyers, but it's the first and hopefully only time she's experienced it for herself – and shoves his shoulder angrily.
You're not even thinking about the battle! she growls. What the fuck are you thinking about instead, huh?
"Yeah, how am I meant to meet up with that guy again if I haven't even got his pokegear number?" says Gold, ignoring Dragonite's look of glowering rage.
She shoves him again.
"Maybe I should have said Thursday was a good day 'cos I can just visit mum on a different day, maybe he's only free on Thursdays…?"
There are some times when Dragonite decides that no, actually she really does not like Gold at all. (But only some times.)
ooo
Dragonite looks at Lance. Then she looks back to the other Dragonite.
"Dragonites are awesome!" says Gold.
The terrible thing was that there was not a trace of sarcasm in that sentence.
Heyyy, says Lance's Dragonite, winking at her. (Dragonite gives him a look of disgust. Gold winks back at Lance's Dragonite. Both of them pretend not to notice the other.)
You'd better be concentrating this time, she says to Gold. She wonders if the other Dragonite grew up as a prize in a travelling gambling tent with next to no hope of a future or a trainer - or a life. She hasn't met many other Pokemon of her own species, only Lance's trio, and she's not too impressed with those ones. I want to punch this other Dragonite properly. And then have a nap.
"Huh?" says Gold, who is looking at the audience. He thought he saw-
I hate you, Dragonite says. She knows Gold will know she doesn't mean it, because – well, what are friends for? She's got to let out all those insults and angry rages at someone, and apparently it's rude to do that to strangers. Or other overly cheerful and friendly Dragonites. Or Lance.
Anyone who owns more than one overly cheerful and friendly Dragonite has a serious problem, she thinks. (Three happy friendly Dragonites in a row attempting to battle-flirt with her this time last year had been one of the more scarring episodes in her life.)
Having just one Gold was more than enough.
ooo
"-it was great! Yeah, more battles with anyone would be awesome, going to Hoenn definitely sounds great. Yeah, I'll think about it. Nah, no trades, I only have these guys. Um… yeah? I'm gonna- oof!" Gold stumbles sideways as something hard slams into his side. He looks up and sees Dragonite rolling her eyes at him, giving off an air of general rage.
The reporter looks up as well. Dragonite glares at her, and stomps off.
"Uh… gotta go! It's so great talking to you guys, so yeah, if you wanna interview me properly just call me and we sort something out, okay?" He runs after Dragonite, who is now grunting at a Sneasel. "What's up?"
"Snea!" squeaks the Sneasel, jumping onto his trainer's lap and clawing his way up his jacket.
"It's you!" says Gold happily, and enthusiastically.
Silver does not seem to share his enthusiasm, but Gold has never been deterred by that. He 'humph's grumpily at Gold in reply, but Gold notices that he's still sitting up straighter, still awkwardly not quite meeting his eyes.
Gold notices a lot when he's focusing.
"It's you!" says Gold again, just in case Silver wanted a second chance to say something stunning and witty and sexy.
"Congratulations," mutters Silver. "I should've guessed you'd win, shouldn't I?"
"Thanks dude," says Gold (it's somewhat stunningly wittily sexy, he guesses?). "I didn't realise you'd stuck around! You left way too quickly when we were talking before."
"I'm about to leave," says Silver, and so Gold sits down next to him. Naturally.
"Again? C'mon, we're friends, we should talk more!"
Silver shifts uncomfortably. Sneasel jumps down and races off to chatter in Dragonite's face, leaving the two of them alone – or as alone as is possible with a camera flashing directly in their faces every five seconds. "Well, I'm not very good at being friends, if that's what you think."
"I don't care," says Gold. "And you're too hard on yourself. I just told you that Crobats evolve out of love, didn't I?"
"Hmm."
"You should stop beating yourself up all the time," says Gold when Silver still makes no reply. "I don't think you're as big a dick as you think you are. Or as big as you act like. Or as big as you probably ha-"
"What?!"
"-vveuhhh no, what?" says Gold. He debates between putting on his innocent 'oh it couldn't have been Gold who smashed those TVs and puked on the Marrill, look how harmless he looks!' expression or doing his patented suggestive eyebrow wiggle, and decides to go for the innocent look. Getting an indignant rise out of Silver was one of Gold's favourite pastimes. It was a pity that he hardly ever saw the guy.
"What did you say?" demands Silver, somehow managing to scowl and look adorably flustered at the same time.
"I said you're not a complete dickhead so shut up and be my friend!"
Silver glares at him. "You're a complete moron, though."
"That's what all my friends say," says Gold cheerfully and truthfully. He leans back against the bench back and watches Sneasel clambering up Dragonite's back. It's quite hard. There is a barricade of journalists and photographers in between. "Your Sneasel's cute."
(He resists the urge to add, "LIKE YOUR FACE," but only because two indignant Silver-reactions in two minutes might dilute the impact.)
"I went back to Cianwood," says Silver after a pause. "But he said… he said I could keep him. He said I should keep him, because Sneasel looked so happy."
"That's great!" Gold says, grinning. "See, that's what I'm talking about!"
"I see." Silver looks away from Gold and at the pair of Pokemon. "So… I haven't seen your Dragonite since she evolved."
"Yeah, she's awesome! But she really seems to hate Lance for some reason…"
Silver snorts. "I thought Lance was the king of Dragonites, or something like that. He has enough of them."
ooo
"Sooo…. what's your number?" says Gold, once it's apparent that Silver is being irreversibly pushed out of Gold's personal space by the sheer number of impatient staring reporters jostling to get closer to Gold.
Silver grumbles under his breath and shifts even further out of the view of the cameras. Even so, he still looks quite… happy? Pleased that Gold asked? Gold finds this encouraging.
"Hey, give me your Pokegear then." He stabs in a few digits and throws it back at Gold. He mutters a quick "bye," and stalks out of the Pokemon League, Sneasel darting past Gold's feet to join him.
"Awesome!" says Gold excitedly to no-one in particular, because this is undeniably pretty awesome and ooh, he should give Silver a stunning and witty and sexy nickname in his Pokegear phonebook.
He carefully types in 'BIGDICK' because… it's true, Silver is kind of just a massive dick but right now Gold's finding it strangely endearing. He likes seeing Silver, he likes Silver being an asshole who's not really an asshole in his actions because he's stopped pretending so hard and overcompensating, and also Gold hasn't worked out how to type spaces and lower-case letters on his Pokegear.
Dragonite leans over and smacks him on the head. Oh my god, I hate you, you are an idiot.
"I know," says Gold, giving her a quick hug. "Sometimes I amaze myself with my awesomeness too."
ooo
a/n: My Gold got a Dratini in the Voltorb Flip tent, which seems a really shady way to get a Pokemon... seriously, gambling? With the prize being a living sentient intelligent being? I think that's kinda fucked up...? but then again this is Pokemonland where kids order their living sentient intelligent 'pets' to maul each other for money, so... yeah. Not going to try and make sense of Pokemonland.
Anyway, I'm trying to set all my Gold/Silver fics in the same continuity! It's... quite confusing since I obviously haven't written them in chronological order, haha. Uhhh I'll get round to writing more of Recursion, uh, sometime. Maybe. Possibly.
My Dragonite is called Luina.