RELAXATION
In which Mewtwo, worried that Sabrina has been working too hard, convinces her to take a vacation.
Despite his careful preparations, it still took three days for Sabrina to relax. Mewtwo would have felt exasperated if he hadn't also been expecting it. His lover wasn't accustomed to doing nothing. Between her work at her gym and school, her training sessions, her psychic research, and the League's many social functions, she always had something taking up her time and energy. The one time he visited her in her office, he noticed that her calendar was highlighted in seven different colors and that her to do list was three pages long. When he pointed out that she might be taking on too much, she said that it had to be done and then started correcting one of her students' essays.
It was obvious to him that she was burning herself out. She was sleeping heavily in his arms lately, even though he knew that she, like him, was normally a light sleeper. So he decided to do something about it.
"How many vacation days have you built up?" he asked her, fumbling with the buttons of her blouse one evening.
"Quite a few," she said, helping him out.
"Good. Take a couple of weeks off. Come with me somewhere nice."
She blinked at him. "You know I can't. I have to—"
"Do a thousand and one things, yes, I know."
"Then you know that I—"
"Delegate," he insisted, while running his finger along the cusp of her bra. "Please. You need some time off. And I need you." He drew her against him. "I am tired of hiding."
She sighed. "We'll have to hide wherever we go, you know."
"Not everywhere." At her puzzled looked, he said, "That is part of the surprise."
She studied his face. "Alright. Two weeks, then."
He showed her how grateful he was afterwards. When she dived into delegating during the next few days, he went to New Island to make sure that everything was ready. He'd spent months on the project and was rather pleased with how it had turned out. Rather than making another castle, he'd constructed a manor like the one she was currently living in (where her parents also lived, which meant that he could only visit her during the night, which wasn't ideal). His island manor had more windows, though. They looked out onto the gardens and the groves of trees he'd hired a group of plant pokémon landscapers to grow for him. There was also a lake a short walk away, with sandy beaches that Sabrina could lay out on. He wasn't certain if she would want to. She was a very cleanly person, so she might not like getting sand on her skin. But the option would be there, as it should be on an island, even one like this, which had sheer cliffs on all sides.
Furnishing the manor and getting supplies here had been tricky. He hadn't had any money for it. If there was one advantage to being raised by a crime lord, though, it was in learning how to skim his bank account. The fact that Giovanni's technicians couldn't trace the source of the hack and had never caught Mewtwo picking up his deliveries had made the theft even sweeter. So Sabrina would have everything she needed here, including a library. That was the first thing he'd decided they needed to have, before even their bedroom. Its shelves were filled with books on psychic theory and poetry and whatever else he could think of that would interest her. It overlooked the eaves of wisteria he'd set up, which she could read under if she liked.
He'd wanted to make her someplace beautiful. Someplace where she would be comfortable and could be herself—where they could be themselves. And where they wouldn't be interrupted. That was part of it, too. Mewtwo knew he couldn't take her away from her normal life, but if he could coax her here on occasion, maybe over the weekends, that would be enough for him. They could indulge in each other as much as they liked for a few days, then go back to their responsibilities. That was his plan, anyway.
But it still took her three days to relax.
On the third day, he found her in the library. Or rather, he found her asleep on the couch in the library, with was wide enough to fit both of them, even with his tail. There was a book on the coffee table next to her and a cold cup of tea, both halfway finished. The sunlight pouring through the window teased a green gleam out of her black hair. He smiled at the sight and took the cup back to the kitchen. She was still napping when he returned, so he pulled one of the books down from a shelf and began to read.
When she stirred an hour later and fumbled for the book she'd set down, he asked her, "Did you sleep well?"
She blinked at him, then sat up and nodded. "Yes. It's a little strange," she admitted, "that I can take a nap if I want to. That there's nothing pressing that I have to get to instead. That hasn't been the case in…." She shook her head. "…in as long as I can remember."
"That is why you're here," he pointed out. "To rest."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Is that all?"
"That's mostly it," he amended, setting his book aside and going over to her. He stroked her cheek. "But I wanted to be able to do this, too."
"Touch my face?" she asked, purposefully misunderstanding him.
"Touch you whenever I wanted, without having to worry about anyone walking in and seeing," he elaborated.
She turned her head and kissed his palm. "That is nice." Then she stood and walked over to a nearby table. "I had a question about this, by the way."
He followed her. "Did you?"
"Mmhm. I've noticed that you didn't put any chairs here. Or stools. You prefer stools," she noted. "It's not low enough to sit at without one, but it's not tall enough that you wouldn't have to bend over while writing something. So," she said, tracing her fingertip along the edge of the wood, "does that make it decorative?"
"I would have put flowers on it if it had been," he said.
"That's what I thought. So what is this for? There are others around the house just like it." She turned around and leaned back against it, a familiar gleam in her eyes.
"I think you might have guessed," he said, pressing her back against it.
"It is at the height of your waist," she said. To his delight, she hopped up onto the table. As he unzipped her pants, she added, "You're becoming a bit of a pervert, you know."
"Says the woman whose first sexual encounter was giving a pokémon a hand job," he said. But then, what did that say about him, when he'd urged her on? Hers was the only touch he'd ever know and she was a human. If she was a deviant, then so was he.
That thought didn't dissuade him from undressing her, or caressing her, or enjoying how good it felt to sink into her. It didn't dissuade him from savoring how she gasped his name as they moved together, coaxing each other towards their peaks. It didn't dissuade him from nuzzling her neck after they were finished, either. She laughed and slapped his shoulder, complaining that that tickled. He didn't stop for a few more seconds, then sighed and lifted himself off of her. He helped her get cleaned up and dressed again, even though he was lousy with buttons and probably hindered her more than helped her. She never complained, though. She just gave him a look that made him feel warm and buoyant. He checked his feet to make sure he wasn't levitating from it.
They went for a walk after that. It was an odd experience for him, to feel her hand wrapped around his and the sunlight on his fur at the same time. This was what he'd hoped for though: to enjoy these days with her. He led her to the lake and teleported a blanket from the manor for them to lay out on. She stared up at the sky as he settled down next to her.
After listening to the birds chirping and the waves crashing against the nearby cliffs, she asked him, "Do you suppose anyone can see us from up there?" She pointed to a white dot in the sky, which was leaving a line of clouds behind it. He was about to say that the plane was much too high up for them to see anything in detail down here, when she added, "It seems like people can see anything these days, with the help of satellites and a search engine."
He stroked her hair. He understood her concern, but he'd learned his lesson about that danger on Mt. Quena. "Do you see that shimmer in the air?" he asked, gesturing to a rainbow smear less than a mile above them.
She looked closer at it. "That one there?" she asked, pointing to it.
"Yes. I've raised a light barrier around us, to alter how the island appears to outside observers. When they look at it, they will see a barren island with jagged rocks around it. I can't imagine anyone will be tempted to pay us a visit." He ran his finger down the line of her jaw. "You don't have to worry. No one will find us here."
"You've thought of everything," she murmured.
He frowned and stroked her lips with his thumb. He couldn't kiss her like another human could, but he could do this, and she'd told him she was certain that it felt just as good. "I wanted this to be perfect for you," he told her. "I know your life can be stressful and our relationship doesn't always make things easier." When she opened her mouth to protest, he added, "But I wanted to give you a place where things could be easy. Somewhere we can go when everything else feels like too much."
She studied his face, then smiled. "I think you've succeeded."
He sighed with relief. "That is good to hear."
She placed her hand on his chest. "You worry too much."
"You are not much better on that count," he teased her.
"No, I'm not," she agreed, "but I'm trying." She leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for bringing me here."
"You will always be welcome here," he promised, while the sun baked into his fur. Feeling faint from the heat, he sat up and asked her, "Would you like to go swimming?"
She lifted an eyebrow. "You like to swim?"
"Not all cats dislike water. Jaguars are known to be fond of it."
"So you're a jaguar now, are you?" she asked him, stripping off her clothes until she was down to her undergarments.
"If I were one, I would be tempted to eat you," he told her, licking his lips.
She took a couple quick steps towards the shore. "You would have to catch me first," she said suggestively, then ran and plunged into the water.
He followed her. She was a more agile swimmer than he was, but eventually he caught her around the waist. They tussled, with her trying to squirm out of his grip while he tried to hold onto her, despite her slippery skin. The struggle ended with him getting water up his nose and cursing at the sting of it, while she floated back from him and laughed. They swam together after that until the sun started to set. When they returned to the manor, Sabrina went to take a shower while he worked on their dinner. By the time she rejoined him, the food was ready and he'd brewed her a cup of her favorite red tea.
"You're spoiling me," she told him, accepting the cup with a smile.
"Is that such a terrible thing?" he said. Someone should spoil you, he thought. Someone should make you feel appreciated and adored. Someone should make you feel loved. You have spent too many years believing that no one ever would.
Her cheeks colored, as if she had heard his thoughts. Perhaps she had. "I love you," she whispered to him.
She didn't say it often. She was still scared to say the words, as if she thought they would hurt him like they had her parents. But unlike them, he wasn't afraid of her, and he didn't think that her love was so frightening, either. After all, it was the sweetest gift he'd ever known.
"I love you as well," he told her, drawing her into his arms and pressing his cheek to hers in the pokémon version of a kiss. He remembered that he'd once been scared to say those words to her, too. But he would say them as many times as she needed him to, until she believed in them as much as she did in their psychic powers.
When their hungers were sated, they returned to their bedroom. Its eastern and western walls were made of glass, giving them ocean views on both sides. He watched her watch the waves and then look up at the stars, which were burning brighter than they ever did in her city. Then Sabrina turned to him, took his hand, and led him to the bed. When they were curled up together under the blankets comfortably, she murmured something into the fur of his chest.
"What was that?" he asked her.
"I said I could stay here forever," she repeated sleepily.
"You could," he said, tracing the shape of a constellation into her nightgown. He could get her anything she needed. He would be happy to.
"I couldn't," she said, opening her eyes to gaze into his. "But I could stay here for a while."
"For a while, then," he agreed, lifting his hand to stroke her hair.
She sighed and nestled herself against him, falling asleep soon afterwards. He held her and closed his eyes, content in the knowledge that he had finally put her at ease. It may have taken three days and months of preparation, but in the end, it had been worth it.