Hello! Rather than updating Pikachu Tales this week, today I am updating this story. I'm pleased to say that I continued working on Pokémon: Love Stories during my little January hiatus but this chapter was written in October. Like how it sometimes happens in my brain, I had a sudden interest in my two characters called Rupert and David. Rupert is a relative of James from Team Rocket - the twin brother of his grandfather from the anime. And David is Misty's maternal grandfather! If you're not familiar with my work, I have a few characters that are ghosts/angels. They are canon in Pokémon after all :P Like Misty's parents, David and Rupert have passed on and this chapter takes place when they are living down on earth. I really enjoyed getting to write this. I haven't written about David and Rupert as a couple much at all even though they are vivid in my mind! I hope you enjoy getting to know them :)

Rupert entered the living room and at once the welcoming glow of the gently lit lamps offered their warmth to the very core of him. His eyes took in the sight of David sitting on the sofa, his gaze smiling as much as his parted lips. He knew that the relieving of any tension he had left in the hallway was not because of the whiskey tumbler in his right hand.

How interesting to suddenly feel at home when they had both been under the same roof all along. Rupert had only been in the other room. Replying to emails and going over client charts in his office. His office that would soon not be his office and the piles of half his belongings in cardboard boxes spoke of that.

He had not even entered his own living room. But yes, he saw David reading on the sofa and he was home at last.

Not hesitating to bask in his company even more closely, Rupert abandoned his half full glass on the coffee table without taking a single sip. He collapsed on the sofa with his partner, legs elevated by the arm of the furniture and head adjusting to plant on David's lap.

The low, knowing of his tone added to the warmth of the moment.

"Reading?" Rupert murmured. This was their greeting. No hello or speaking of how it felt like they had been apart for hours when it had barely been one.

Instead, actions did most of the talking, both in Rupert curling up against his partner and the way without a moment of hesitation as if this were his sole purpose, David's hands adjusted to hold the book in just the one hand.

His right hand moved, fingers bedding themselves in curly hair that's grey hue was slowly beginning to forget their lavender roots. And yet, like the quiet love that oozed between the two men, in the right kind of light, a glimpse of purple could be seen.

Rupert was not going to lose the thread of Morgan genes that easily, though he had no blood children of his own to pass onto. And he was not going to let this moment go to waste.

David's fingers burrowing in his locks caused his eyes to blissfully close even if he was interested in what genre of book his partner was absorbed in this time.

"I'm looking at the photo album from Jordan and Lynne's wedding." David's gentle mumble replicated Rupert's own out of a complete act of subconscious union rather than purposeful tactic to flatter. Rupert's eyes had only just fluttered shut. But he clambered to rest his head against David's shoulder rather than his lap. "I can hardly believe it's nearly been two years since then."

A boyish tinge to the cheeks elevated David's voice slightly louder as Rupert altered himself to be level on the sofa with his partner. He could have basked against his lap for hours, feeling the other man's fingers in his tendrils of hair.

But he too did want to reminisce. And, like an unspoken language that was just for them and them alone, it did not go unnoticed by Rupert why David's earnest eyes blinked rapidly from behind his glasses.

He would have been a poor psychologist if these traits in people went unnoticed – and an even worse life partner to David!

The back of his curly hair rubbed against David's shoulder as his lips parted wider this time, the motion of his head not as an attempt to feel more of his partner combining with him.

Rather than looking at the glossy photographs pinned neatly in the album of that special day for both to see – Lynne looking a vision in white and Jordan equally so adorned in his naval uniform from way back when - Rupert's own great nephew, James, captured mid speech - just to name a few - Rupert filled his line of vision with David next to him instead of any photographic etching of him.

One corner of his mouth dropped down as the other side continued to smirk. His beard parted on his face as he looked at his partner knowingly. He did not hesitate to seize the opportunity to add more of a tinge to his smooth cheeks.

"It was one of the more memorable weddings that I have attended." Rupert said. David needed no permission to stop glancing at the photographic faces of his loved ones and look to the person that he adored most.

His glasses wriggled on the bridge of his nose as he giggled in a way that in his ears rang awkwardly – with no rhythm and with no real construct. But to Rupert they were exactly what he had been hoping to hear.

That wedding of Jordan and Lynne nearly two years ago had been one of those days that changed everything and not just for the couple. Sometimes you get those days. Oftentimes life is filled with mere moments that change the trajectory of everything.

After a lifetime, two deaths and another lifetime together, Jordan and Lynne had decided to finally tie the knot in front of all the people that gave meaning to their second existence. It had also been the day that Jordan managed to persuade James to go after what he really wanted too.

And – yes – that day was memorable to Rupert because he had met David for the first time.

You would think because of the rosy blushes on both of their cheeks – Rupert's invisible thanks to the greying hair clinging to his skin – that something quite romantic had happened on that wedding day for the two of them as well.

But it had not. They had merely met. Shaken hands. Sat at the same table. Engaged in invigorating conversation.

That chance meeting, however, changed everything. Even if it would be another month until things really changed.

David could have allowed his eyes to dart over to Rupert forever, feeling the weight of his head that was filled with good memories of them both. But he could not help but look away, both hands then holding the photo album since Rupert's curls were out of reach.

As he pored lovingly over the memories, he too found his head shaking from side to side, wordlessly touched from the sheer wonder of it all.

Sometimes in life exists these moments where everything makes sense. You can see all the threads of your life and the choices you made – or choices you were too scared to dive headfirst into – come together in one blinding moment.

Meeting Rupert was exactly that. And it was all thanks to his wonderful daughter and receiving the honor of having a front row ticket in her life for the very first time.

David could not resist showing love for that aspect of his life, though he could have easily continued singing of his affection for Rupert until his last breath.

Which he hoped would not happen again.

"I am just so delighted that their love has lasted beyond anything anyone would imagine." David began earnestly. It causes Rupert to chuckle quietly for he knew that his partner would misread his breathy titters. "They are soul mates, you know that? Proof that real love finds you wherever and however."

It effortlessly came to Rupert's mind the image of Lynne's mother cursing the couple's eternal love and that was the reason for his amusement! Now he had to be tactful as he heard David's words because if he were not careful then he would mistake them for something else.

Or worse – he would discover them to be exactly as he feared.

It was not because Rupert did not believe in the love story of Jordan and Lynne because he would be one of the first people to agree with David that it was better than any piece of writing that he could dissect with his literature loving brain.

But Rupert was a man of science. David too though he wore his heart a lot more on his sleeve.

However, there was a time and a place for everything has Professor Oak used to say, and Rupert did not want to lose the sound of his partners voice over opinions he might express.

A gentle sigh suppressed a yawn – or a chuckle. This noise continued to speak of the intention of keeping their love aglow like the lights in Noah and Josie's living room. Rupert nestled back against David's lap.

David could see things under a microscope as much as his partner. And his interest was piqued from the second that Rupert moved back down.

"They sure are good together." Rupert began, his hand rising and leaving David filled with surprise when instead of reaching for his whiskey tumbler, he pushed his partner's arm down so he could see the photo album while still assuming the same position against his lap. "And unbelievably lucky to find each other over and over again."

That is all anybody wants, isn't it? To be searched for when you are so certain that you can never be found. For the right people to find you and to choose you, whoever they are to you.

As David's hands lowered and allowed Rupert's gaze to take in the memories held in front of them both, it dawned upon him that for all the scarcity of true love, David's camera had captured one's worthy of great literary admiration.

The love of Jordan had Lynne had paved the way for their daughter, Misty, and her husband, Ash, to write the story of their lives and their love in exactly the way that they wished. James had looked to the now wedded couple with such admiration that he knew which pieces he wished to take with him.

Rupert had once lived a life that he believed loveless. Fate had not been kind to him and taken away from him the opportunity to do the kind of things that gave a man meaning in life. But all at once he could see that he had been blind.

The blessing of growing old – living and dying – had shown him the error of his ways. Everything had always been there, but he had been too prideful to see it.

Time had changed him. Love had transformed him. But like it often was in a comfortable relationship, those kinds of traits that Rupert had exiled from his own being started showing up in David.

That evening, David could not help but poke at it, sensing that Rupert was not saying everything which was peculiar given that usually when he held his tongue, his facial expressions would betray him.

David gave his partner a bit of a nudge. His body did not move. But it was clear, however, that he had caught on to Rupert's rare unwillingness to stir something up.

"They're soulmates." David repeated, this time added insistence latching onto his words and even being the driving force of his actions. The photo album lowered so it was in a union of its own with Rupert. David in turn followed suit, his eyes beady as they fixed on his partner.

Rupert knew what David was doing. And Rupert knew that David knew that there was something that he was not choosing to say. Amongst that all, he knew that they both knew in the same amounts.

He could see the pridefulness washing over the glasses of his partner as they concealed an interrogative glance from him. Could tell that he wanted him to agree with him. For them to see this notion in the exact same way that they could usually read everything else. With the mirrored accuracy.

But Rupert could not give this to David.

As his head began to lift off his lap, an irreverent smirk started tugging his lips apart. For all he had previously wanted to keep the peace, he could not just be a doormat for the sake of it.

He had no intention to be unkind. But a battlefield was presenting itself between them. And he owed it to them both to play to the best of his ability.

"Come now, my dear." Rupert began. Though there was a competitive edge latching onto him and growing stronger thanks to the unusual rigidity of David, a genuine affection washed over his gaze as he said my dear. Even if David heard it differently, he was not taunting him. "Let us focus on that we agree they are wonderful together and share a drink today as we did nearly two years ago in honor of their lucky path and even more fortuitous tomorrow."

And with that, Rupert swung his legs back to the floor from being elevated against the arm of the sofa so that he was sitting and his empty hand reached for the abandoned tumbler. He had never been gladder for the cool glass against his toasty palm, practically salivating at the idea of the liquid warming his belly – and soothing whatever was brewing!

Rupert, however, was left with his head tilting to the one said because, although David stubbornly shook his head, denying the opportunity to drink from the same glass as his partner, he discarded the photo album entirely to reach for the tumbler himself.

But he did not take a sip.

The slanted motion of Rupert's neck altered as the brief squint of his eyes knew that it was David who was taunting him.

Oh, it was on!

"Do you not believe that Jordan and Lynne are soul mates?" David interrogated. To the listless eyes of the paintings hanging on a wall that blandly took in every interaction between the two, it was hard to label David as relentless.

Though his rapidly blinking eyes behind dark frames gave him quite the unassuming and harmless appearance, Rupert could see another side to him bubbling underneath the surface. It was a side of him that he quite liked! He would have been bored to tears a few weeks into their relationship if David were the same person all the time.

Nevertheless, Rupert acted as if David's demeanor did not fly with him, and he pretended to plait his thinning eyebrows together when he tried to reach for his whiskey, but his partner moved to push it further away on the coffee table.

It could not be reached without Rupert getting up to fetch it. Rupert would not give David the satisfaction – or horror – of seeing that he was that desperate.

He decided that the ball was in his court and if he were going to play honest then he would too.

Rupert's neck straightened as he looked at David. After pretending to rub his temples, he decided that there was no time like the present to push his partners buttons. It was not exactly like he was making stuff up for the reaction.

If David decided he wished to come face to face with the truth, then so be it!

"It's hard for me to believe that they are soul mates given the fact that I don't believe that they exist." Rupert said. And that was it. As far as he was concerned, he had said his piece.

What spoke even more volumes is the way that he did not bless David with the sight of him yearning for his whiskey or even going to fetch it after vowing silently that he would not.

He, however, reached for the photo album that David had decided was unimportant.

Before Rupert could spend any amount of time poring over the memories as David had done before he had even entered the room, David's words were so filled with certainty that they had the power to keep the pages glued together.

"There's no way that you believe that." David argued in such a way that for half an amused heartbeat it led Rupert to believe that he had misconstrued his whole point. That for some silly reason he believed that Jordan and Lynne were somehow less flesh and skin than they were. "Of course you believe in soul mates."

The second long display of Rupert's eyebrows twitching together and a tiny dent of a dimple the width of a hangnail appearing by the side of his mouth as it pressed closed reassured him that they were on the same page by being not on the same page.

David really was insisting on a completely ridiculous belief system!

"I don't." Rupert's voice sounded out of him, dry and intoxicating like the whiskey that he was not allowed to ingest until things were cleared between them. If they ever would be.

That laugh escaped from David a second time that evening. This time his mind left no room for berating himself over the way that he sounded. So geeky. So ridiculous. His brain was then wired to see things with blinding tunnel vision, and it left no room for anything else than getting on the same page as Rupert.

He wanted him to understand. To agree with him. It was to feed his heart more than his ego. But Rupert had a degree which had taught him all the ways that he knew he had to disagree.

After David's eyelashes clapped together a few times behind his glasses – as if this would flit away the imbalance between them – he spoke.

"Impossible." This was the final moment that David was laced with insistence before it made room for a peculiar kind of something that also concealed the desire to not be vulnerable. "How can you not believe in soul mates when you believe that you and I are?"

David's words sounded. And his eyelids continued to clap together, awaiting an answer. Though he had not gulped down a single drop of Rupert's liquor, his belly was warm – it was on fire with the hope that his partner would turn the whole damn thing around and sweep him off his feet as he had done by simply saying hello nearly two years ago.

Rupert could have lied. He knew enough about the human brain and knew enough about the fascinating being that was David to orchestrate the right words that would affirm his love for him. David would be on fire in more than just his belly at the way that he told him that whatever they were – wherever they came from - they were soul mates.

They were put on that earth on that timeline to find each other in the way that they had.

But, you see, Rupert was a man of science. More so than David in a strange way though one had dedicated their entire life to theory and research.

Rupert played a theory out in his head: whatever he said at this moment even if it were the truth would not be received well by David.

So, he decided to wave the white flag.

He had once before decided that it was on. But that was before that damned hopeful flicker in David's gaze. He could not hurt him like this. What was the point?

"This is very dangerous territory that we are in, David, so I am going to respectfully refuse to play a part in the rest of this conversation." Rupert left the sofa cushions at last. Whatever David felt when he reached for the whiskey tumbler was none of his business. It was far more important to save him from the honest conversation than it was to shield him from him drinking. "Cheers."

Rupert emptied the glass in one gulp, his lips puckering on his face after they broke their distance from the tumbler speaking of the fiery potency of the liquid. But the whiskey, however, gave David courage rather than Rupert.

His eyes were fixated on his partner all over again. This time, however, rather than placating himself with an idea that he now realized was fantasy, he was ready to stand up to reality.

David wanted to learn of Rupert's viewpoint. Even if it wounded him to the point of never return.

"This is very important territory that we are in, Rupert." David copied the way that he said his name rather than a sugary pet name and this scorched him more than he liked to admit. David wanted the truth, but Rupert was doubtful it would set either of them free. "I would rather be hurt by the truth than placated by a lie." Rupert swallowed though the whiskey was long since inside him. "Please."

Truth may not have set them free, but Rupert set free a sigh as if it were a caged creature. Why did David have to be so riddled with manners even during this time? So riddled with sincerity.

Rupert was quickly regretting the game that he had played a part in. Why did he have to be so damned competitive? Why did he always have to have the last word? He did not when it was serious. Rupert had not thought it all that serious.

He knew that it had been important to keep quiet. Now he was at a crossroads. He was staring down the possibilities: either bury his words and have them choke him or allow them to pour out of him and ruin the person that he loved most.

But then it happened. David happened. With those blinking eyes of his and those words of his, he was asking him – begging him – to just be honest.

If this was their last conversation, he owed him that much.

Holding onto the glass though it was crystal clear at that point and a refill was on the other side of his brother's house, Rupert came to sit back down with David who sat there patiently albeit with bated breath.

His eyes rose to the ceiling as he considered. Inside of his head it was so easy. It was so straight forward, so obvious what he wished to say. To verbalize to David.

Rupert was a man of science. David was meant to be too. The word soulmate did not have a place in Rupert's life, and it certainly did not in any kind of scientific text that he read over the years. Was the human body, the human experience deeply moving, deeply fascinating? Absolutely.

There had been unquestionable evidence that fragments of stars – fragments of heaven – were inside every single human being that walked the Pokémon World. Did that mean that sometimes these lost parts came together in people that fell in love, thus giving scientific evidence of soul mates?

What about parents and their babies? Rupert had never been blessed with that experience. He was unable to have children of his own. But he had read about the chemicals transpired between mother and baby and the way that the mother and the father gave baby exactly what they needed in different ways.

Is that soul mates? Is that what it all meant?

All this and more flashed in front of Rupert's face in the seconds before he opened his mouth. In the end, he regretted opening his mouth. He wanted to say so much about the two of them and what their fateful meeting meant to him but instead found himself saying only this:

"I don't believe in soulmates, David." Rupert mumbled. And that was that.

This time as his partner's name was spoken, the birth name that he had been given echoed the meaning of I'm sorry rather than any other kind of prophecy that would follow the rest of his life.

David knew that these words had been coming. Knew that they had been on his tail since the first time that he spoke that wretched word on that particular evening. But when he had asked Rupert to be honest with him, he hoped for more than that though perhaps it was unfair to expect more than what he asked.

A part of him held onto the hope that Rupert would paint the stars for him and only him, speaking words that only he could understand. Words that the two of them would use to forge the path towards their forever.

But that could be how it was meant to end. With a sentence so unbearably simple.

Even the greatest love stories – the most fated meetings – can be torn apart by a sentence that a child could string together.

"This... This is just a nightmare." David began. He seized his opportunity to stand up. Rupert could only watch him, rolling the empty glass between his hands for something to do, the twitching motion of his thinning eyebrows speaking of his own disbelief. "This changes everything."

Rupert knew that David would be devastated. He knew how desperately he clung onto theories and ideas of his and it was one of the reasons that had prompted him to first saying the precious words of I love you.

He knew that it was not what he wished to hear. But from where he was standing – or rather, sitting – nothing had changed apart from their willingness to tackle things that were a little uneasy. But they had always done that.

They had entered that relationship as – for lack of a better word – old men. Not bright-eyed boys who needed everything to be perfect at every moment.

Rupert blinked like a feline up at his partner. The last thing he wished to do was push him further over the edge. But there was part of him that could not resist. Not unkindly. But David had asked for his unwavering honesty. Both on that evening and within their love.

"Is... Is there a possibility that you are being a tad dramatic, my dear?" Rupert wondered as calmly as he could without poking David with a red-hot stick. A chance existed that the pet name earned him no favors in that moment.

His name slipping out of him, however, could have had the same effect.

David looked down at him like he had been more than just poked by a hot stick. The side of his cheek stung as if Rupert had slapped him with full force.

He knew his partner to be unabashedly honest. But in this moment, he was not much of a partner. He was a beast to contend with.

"No!" David yelped with such certainty that Rupert needed to bite down hard on his tongue to keep his expression from conveying that David was already proving his point. He was regretting the hurried mouthful of liquor! "This changes everything about us and who I thought we were and where we are going." David was blinking rapidly behind his glasses again. "It changes everything."

If David were one of Rupert's students in the creative writing course that he volunteered at on the weekends, then he would have surely marked him down for repeating himself, for prattling on!

But this was not an occasion to be pedantic. If that quality oozed out of both he and David at once, then surely it would engulf the whole room and suffocate them both.

Alcohol was bubbling in Rupert's stomach and encouraging him to be even more straight to the point than he usually was. David had asked him to be that way. He tried not to run with it so much that David ended up regretting it!

But Rupert felt powerless. Both to the whiskey warming his inwards and the silly little avenue that was that evening.

"Why are you acting like such a woman right now, David?" Rupert asked, suddenly standing. He did not even bend to put his whiskey glass down, so it stayed statically in between both of his hands. "I know that liking men was a scarcity before you came along but there's no need to be so in touch with your feminine side."

As Rupert stood up, he was a good few inches shorter than David but when he said these words, he could not help but feel like he was towering above him. But then the look in David's eyes soon burst that bubble. And Rupert came tumbling down.

Hot and sticky nausea latched onto every part of him, and it was not because he had drunk too much. Half a tumbler of whiskey was barely enough to knock him off balance. But that drink paired with the evening was too much for him.

And then he had to do that. Say that. He did not know why he did.

Looking at David's rapidly blinking eyes this time to conceal prickly tears, Rupert could not focus on the fact that he had tried to be nice in the middle there because the rest of it was just mean. It was bitter. The kind of person that he had once been. Not the kind that he wished to take with him.

He seemed as intolerant as the people who had been brushed the wrong way when he was openly living with a man after more than one lifetime of living another way. But he could not help it.

He could see David's cheeks tinged with pink before his hurtful words and he could see them existing in the aftermath too. It was the same for him hidden behind layers of beard. Rather than the warmth of his cheeks prompting him to say something lovely – something of what he truly meant – he had said all that.

The next moment was even worse for him. He had to deal with hearing David's words as he remorsefully sat back down on the sofa.

"Perhaps we are more alike than you think because there is a glaring lack of manliness in you right now, Rupert. Even less than you once thought." David muttered. Rupert's skin ran cold like somebody had stepped over his grave. But he only had himself to blame. "A real man would believe in the unbelievable because he wants to believe in love." David adjusted his glasses. He was staring into Rupert harder than ever before though he had stopped being able to look at him. "Because more than just people can know when two people deserve to be together."

The urge to take a shuddering breath inwards took hold of Rupert and he did not run from it.

In quite the dull movement, Rupert discarded his tumbler down onto the coffee table – onto the coaster that David had laid out for him before he even stepped into the room – and he pushed his unravelling, curly locks out of his face.

David continued not to look at him, silently but deeply breathing in the aftermath of everything.

But the finale was yet to come.

Rupert believed that the wind had been knocked out of him by David holding the mirror up to his face. He had done the same to him. But Rupert had not been filled with malice. His own points and his own beliefs existed simply to exist.

"Do you really want to know what I believe?" Rupert began. The flickering gaze of David told him that he did before it disappeared from him for good. This gave Rupert the divine intervention that he needed. He was suddenly down on his knees in front of his partner. "I don't give a shit what some deity approves of when I chose you. When I love you." he licked his lips, but his words were unstoppable. "You're my goddamn universe. To hell with what anything else thinks. And I want us together. Forever. Do you see now? Do you see why two words mean nothing to me when you mean everything?"

And boy, did David see! How foolish he had been. How prideful. For it was true. Whatever remnants of pride that had existed within Rupert and cast its shadow onto him during an earlier life had set up a home in David and marred him.

But thankfully it was just for that evening. Mostly.

David did see, you see. No amount of pride was going to stop that from happening.

Tears fought for their right to live in his eyes when Rupert had finished with his words. They existed within Rupert too. But because he pushed them away as much as he could, stopping them from muddying whatever this moment was destined to be, they could only tickle at the moustache part of his beard.

David looked at Rupert. Rupert sniffed in David's direction. Not a sniff of contempt. And because David could read him clearly finally, he did not take it as such and pulled his partner's hands into his before pressing his face against his palm.

Kisses did not trail from there to the tips of his fingers. David merely existed in his hold as Rupert existed and thrived alongside him on every day that they shared, mundane or full of adventure.

They had at last found love. And that meant that the lines between mundane and adventure were blurred quite a lot. They loved every single minute of that.

With David's smooth skin brushing against him, Rupert felt like he could breathe out again. He knew that it was a risky move but after everything else that evening, anything else seemed like a much safer bargain.

Rupert moved one of his hands away from David to cup at the back of his head before he intended to lean closer to his partner, pressing a kiss at the center of his forehead. That forehead of his that held all sorts of thoughts and beliefs. Some of them exasperating! But that was okay.

It was an honor to be bewildered by him.

Rupert's lips did not make it as far as David's forehead. His head turned to the side, dodging him, and he looked at his partner with such a degree of seriousness that it made it seem like they had not started to patch things up.

"I'm still mad at you, you know." David warned. Rupert's eyes fluttered up to where he had intended to kiss before they peered through the glasses of his partner and met his eyes. As soon as he did, this paired with his words made him openly chuckle.

Rupert's head swung from side to side. Yes, from now on he would worship the ability to be bewildered by David. He would kiss the ground that allowed his partner to exist in the perfect mix of beauty and ridiculousness.

His own words coming out of him sounded equally foolish. But cherished them in the gallery of his mind too.

"I know." Rupert spoke, his words and his face etched with amusement. In that moment, the lines of his face that usually spoke of where he had been were singing with only affection for the other man.

But, of course, David being David, he mistook their meaning entirely. As his glasses flashed when the light hit them, this could not conceal his eyes blinking behind them, his head tilting with hurt.

"That doesn't bother you?" Inquired David, bewilderment latching onto the holes in him that were left by hurt before time passed.

He watched Rupert's every move in response but no matter how long he looked at him, the moments before were the last time that he could predict what he was not saying. And it was not because Rupert decided to set it free in the way that he had his last honesty!

A plethora of expressions took over his face. In the end what prevailed was a small smile parting his lips and elevating them on the one side closer to his ear. Rupert's eyes danced in the way that they often did.

Living a second life had not dulled the sparkle in his iris. In fact, thanks to David, it had a far stronger existence.

"It bodes better for me than it does for you, unfortunately." Rupert explained with a cheekiness in his gaze that could not be denied. However, David was none the wiser. And it encouraged Rupert's smirk to take up more of his face before he took a chance, smiling against David's mouth. "Because you're cute when you're mad."

These were the final words that Rupert said for a couple of seconds before any sounds were muffled by the kissing of his lips against David's. It caught him by surprise but, after a fluttering heartbeat or two, David kissed him back and even moved his hands to rummage in Rupert's curly hair.

The circle hand completed. This time they were both back to that feeling of home roaring like a fire in their belly.

But as if that heat were too much to bear, David pulled away from the kiss after a couple of seconds. He was left with regret and Rupert filled with even more affection when his glasses were like a windscreen in the fog thanks to their proximity with each other.

Rupert's nose brushing against David's, he grinned near to the other man. In response, David's eyes wandered to the ceiling, his cheeks aglow as he tried to keep the ball in his court. To pretend that he was not as smitten as he was with Rupert on their first day of knowing each other.

But after an evening of truth telling, that was a horrendously massive lie.

"I feel I'm less cute now." David said. Rupert chuckled but with no unkindness in his heart. His eyes spoke of the truth when his hands reached for his partner and to steal his eyes away from him, he took David's glasses from his face and claimed them for himself.

David looked at him as much as he could and quizzically so. With them perched on the end of Rupert's nose he would surely see even less. But that is what he wanted. He wanted to lean in and kiss David again without seeing him. And he would be sure to learn that not only did his beauty in his eyes shine from within, but it was curated from every part of him. Even the parts that sometimes filled him with aggravation!

He was David. And he could never ask for anything different from him than that.

As if it were a prophecy, Rupert did lean into David. And in between kissing him again, his hand rising to stroke his cheek as if his hand desired never to touch anything else again – not even a whiskey bottle – he spoke to him.

"Don't worry about it." Rupert said. And already David did not. His hands in his hair and waiting for the next kiss from the only man that had ever meant anything to him, he was starting to understand Rupert's point. The word soulmate could not even touch the two of them. "I'm annoyingly charming enough for the both of us."

Before they shut again, David's eyes revolved in their sockets as if Rupert were merely annoying! But then his partner kissed him, and he did not hesitate to kiss him back and anything else blurred into insignificance. No more was there a need to prove points or argue over the meaning of words or even do anything other than to exist together. To thrive together.

David became less mad with Rupert, less filled with hurt with each kiss that he peppered against his lips. And as for Rupert – well, he did not exactly come over to David's way of thinking – but he understood why he needed to hold it so closely.

Maybe David was right. And Rupert too in his own way. No, not about the annoyingly charming part! But perhaps he was onto something – why did it matter what sort of deity or force or whatever you wish to call it designed them and their paths to end up together?

Rupert wanted them to be as he had so vehemently expressed. David felt the same way. And after a lifetime of dodging the arrows that were meant for them... Yes, that meant everything. As much as the whole universe.

But like Rupert said in that way that was so very like him – screw the entire world. They seemed to design their own and hold it within their palms every time those hands of theirs reached for each other.

Maybe the world had fought for them to be together. But that evening showed that they too would fight the good fight to always be together.

Sometimes everything can change in less than one day. Things can change entirely in just a few moments.

Yes, that evening is one of those examples.

There you go, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) It tickled me when writing this and editing it too that David reminded me so much of Misty's other relative - her father's cousin, Eli. Just the way that he was so insistent and so serious in his beliefs. I had a lot of fun portraying both David and Rupert in this chapter! I love Rupert's cheeky side - though I would have put him in the dog house for that one particular comment that he said to David :P Shannon and I discussed the idea for this story such a long time ago. And back then it was not even a story idea - it was a little conversation about how we imagine that Rupert and David's ideologies don't always align :3 Thanks again for reading and I look forward to updating this story again soon! My next update will be Pikachu Tales so perhaps see you there!

Amy signing out :)