Overtake (Red/Lyra, one-shot)

[outstretched]

Title: Overtake
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,982
Genre: Character Study, Romance, Fluff
Fandom: Pokémon
Pairings: Red/Lyra
Warnings: None
Summary: There are a lot of things Red doesn't do: laugh, lose, fall in love.
A/N: So sorry again for the spam, watchers. Too many deadlines in a short time period! For pokeprompts' first prompt, 5x5. Sequel to The Last Challenger. This is obviously a rough draft/writing exercise—it's jumbled, rushed (esp. the ending), and I'm pretty sure there are plot holes—but due to the prompt's restrictions, I can't really fix it. I'm sorry ;~; that's what I get for waiting so long to finish this. Used all fifteen minutes for these. Most of my songs worked out pretty well, but I GOT THE WEIRDEST SONG EVER FOR #3, wtf.
Cross-Posts: DW & AO3.


Overtake


1. Gold Guns Girls, Metric
I don't wanna bend like the bad girls bend
I just wanna be your friend
Is it ever gonna be enough?

Red opens his eyes.

"Red," his mother calls from downstairs, "Leaf is here to see you." He doesn't respond, and after a few minutes, Leaf pokes her head in his doorway. Her eyebrow lifts at the sight of the current Kanto Champion lying sprawled on his bed, fully clothed, with eyes weighed down by too much sleep.

"Hey," she whispers, tiptoeing into the room as if she's visiting an invalid. Red sits up and swipes his bangs from his eyes. Pikachu twitches, but continues to dream. "We haven't heard from you," Leaf continues. "It's been a while. You okay?"

Red nods, but his heart isn't in it. Leaf sits next to him on the bed; Red moves belatedly, and their bodies brush. Leaf looks away, but Red is looking out the window, and doesn't seem to notice.

His eyes return to her face when her hands settle on his cheeks. "Talk to me," she says. Her voice is quiet, but firm.

Red glances to the side. "This...isn't what I wanted."

Leaf settles back, her eyes narrowing. "The attention? The fame?"

He nods. "I just wanted..."

"To be stronger," she finishes for him, and he nods again. He looks bewildered, but there's something else too, something Leaf recognizes only because she has had to release Pokémon who couldn't be tamed to the smallness of a Poké Ball. On impulse, she kisses his forehead, apologizing and sympathizing all at once. He accepts it gravely, as if it is another weight he must bear.

Her lips quirk. "Green would have loved it, you know."

Red shrugs, his eyebrows creasing into a small frown.

Leaf gets to her feet and tugs on his hand until he, too, stands. She straightens his clothes, tsking at the wrinkles. "Sorry," he mutters. She shakes her head.

"You know what you need?" she says. "You need a vacation."


Somehow, Red doesn't think that a snow-covered mountain was what Leaf meant.

2. Animal, Miike Snow
In your eyes I see the eyes of somebody I knew before, long long long ago
But I'm still trying to make my mind up—
Am I free or am I tied up?

"Oh my gosh, you're real!" he hears a voice exclaim. Red doesn't bother turning around. He's heard too many greetings over the past three years, and he's responded to only two of them: one from Green, one from Leaf, both punches that nearly broke his jaw.

He hears the crunch of her footsteps as she picks a path through the rocks and gravel. Her hand is soft, like a bird alighting on his shoulder. "Are you Red? The champion?" she asks. "Professor Oak told me you'd be here, but..." his continued silence makes her gulp. "I hope I'm not intruding."

He turns. She's small and frail-looking, with the pigtails of a young girl; her expression is open and excited. They're nothing alike, and he glances at the Pokémon on her belt, already bored.

She steps back. "I'm Lyra, the Johto champion," she says, her eyes crinkling in a smile—a small one, hard with determination. Suddenly, he recognizes her smile, her stance, the tilt of her chin. His eyebrow quirks with interest.

So he sends out Pikachu, and her Pokemon fall before it in a scattered rush.

For a moment, Lyra stands silently. Her lips are parted in shock; her fists tremble as she clenches them into fists, trying to process this new thing, loss. For a moment, he thinks of Green.

"Wow," she says to herself, finally. Then she looks up with a grin. Red blinks. "Wow! You're amazing!"

Red watches as she revives her team and takes her leave. At the exit, she turns back to look at him, standing alone in the cave. Her fingers twist together as she gives him a last smile. "Can—can I come again?"

At first, he doesn't know how to answer. Aside from Green and Leaf, no one has ever wanted to battle him more than once.

He nods.

She claps her hands together. "Thank you! I'll be back soon, okay?" She lifts a finger to her lips, and her eyes brighten; "I'll bring you a scarf too, since you lost yours. You look pretty cold."

Before he can blink, she vanishes in a swirl of snow.

It's the first time Red has laughed in years.

3. Harlem Nights, Alcazar (what)
They had the magic in their feet, 142nd street
The gals were sugar, she was sweet
Yeah, the cat knew how to swing

Green's visits bring supplies—food, water, potions, concern in the form of scolding as Red is tucked into blankets and a warm cup of tea is placed in his hands.

Leaf's visits, more rare, bring news—newspaper clippings and video recordings that she uploads to his PokéGear so that he has something to do during the long stretches of silence.

Lyra's presence brings music to the mountain. It's in her humming that harmonizes with the wind, the poetry of her tactics as she creeps closer to overtaking him, the laughter that comes so easily to her lips.

Often, Red finds that he has to share his precious supplies with her, and the news she brings him is almost meaningless: stories of her best friends and people he'll never meet. Today, she's telling him about a summer festival that takes place in her hometown. She's describing pretty dresses and whirling steps and Red listens quietly, as he always does.

She must be getting better at reading him, because she stops mid-sentence and says, "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you."

Red shrugs.

Lyra's expression shifts to glee. "Get up," she says, scrambling to her feet. When he gives her a flat look, she pulls at his arm. "Get up!" she pleads.

Red gets to his feet with a sigh. Without permission or preamble, Lyra lifts his hands and places one on her shoulder, one on her waist. Red's eyes widen, but Lyra doesn't seem to notice.

"Like this," she says, "Now follow the beat and watch my feet, okay?"

Dancing, Red discovers, demands the kind of focus that he's only given to Pokémon training and survival, and has the shifting fluidity that he sees in Lyra's best strategies. It requires lightning reflexes to avoid stepping on her feet, rapid memorization to repeat the steps she's showing him, and ingenuity to lead the dance when she asks him to show her what he's learned. But there's more to it than that. There's something thrilling in the way his heart races, more than just the newness of the exercise—something that he likes more than he understands.

Hours later, they're dancing in the firelight, Lyra's pigtails flying as she sings the country tune and keeps time, breathless with exertion and laughter. Red's never heard this song before. The words are all about autumn harvests and young lovers in the spring, everything that Red doesn't have up here.

When the fire is almost dead and it's too dark to see, Red trips over Lyra and the two end up sprawled across the icy floor.

"You're always amazing!" Lyra pants. "I can't believe you picked that up so fast! You've really never danced before?"

Red shakes his head, his own chest heaving. He allows himself to lie beside her for another moment before he gets up to rebuild the fire. Lyra's singing echoes through the cave as he works, quiet, sounding like a memory.

Later that night, when Lyra is sleeping in the blankets he uses for a bed and Red is lying on top of Snorlax, he realizes: Lyra is nothing he needs, but everything he wants.

4. Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode
Vows are spoken to be broken; feelings are intense, words are trivial
Pleasures remain—so does the pain;
Words are meaningless and forgettable

The sound of snow crunching behind him is wild, stumbling, not like the light step that's brought her here so many times before. Still, Red doesn't turn around. (He never does. Like so many other things, it's a game they play.)

"Red," she says, and her voice is hard, choked and brittle. Red blinks and turns, tracking her as she sits down beside him at the mountain summit, partially sheltered under an outcropping of rock and dangerously close to the edge.

Her nose is red where it peeks out over her scarf. Her eyes are narrowed slits that are bright with tears. "Red," she says, "I don't understand, they keep—I never wanted any of—"

Red lifts a finger to his lips and says, "Shh."

He makes noise so rarely that Lyra stops dead, staring at him. After a few moments, he points out at the sky.

It's sunset.

Sunsets at the top of Mt. Silver are unlike sunsets anywhere else in the world. The light shines more brilliantly as it sinks through clouds that are below them; the colors—gold, blue, violet—are brighter and more intense than those seen anywhere else.

More impressive than that, though, is the soundtrack of roaring silence, complete and oppressive. When people come to visit and find him outside of his cave, they speak in whispers, cowed by the wind's high whine as it pushes the clouds across the sky, giving the sun temporary halos of pure white.

The silence is oppressive, but it has also taught him what's important.

The sunset only lasts a few minutes. When the sun has disappeared below the cloud cover, he turns and sees frozen tears, forgotten, on Lyra's cheeks. Wordlessly, she leans into him and he puts an arm around her. It feels natural, expected.

"Thank you," Lyra whispers.

Red rubs his hand up and down her arm. He'll wake her up early tomorrow, he thinks. The sunrise is even more beautiful.

5. Major Tom, Shiny Toy Guns
All systems are go: “Are you sure?”
Control is not convinced, but the computer
Has the evidence, no need to abort—the countdown starts

He knows this is the last fight from the moment the battle begins.

It's not just that she takes the momentum and holds it from the second Ampharos hits the ground. It's not just that he's seen the end coming for over a year now, regardless of whether they battled or not. It's in a single, small action: when she lifts her first Poké Ball, preparing to throw it into the field, she meets his eyes—and smiles. The thud of premonition hits him right between the eyes.

Two years of battles and he'd thought he known everything about her: every move, every weakness, every counter. And to some degree, he does. She's been closing the holes in her strategies and adding new moves to her repertoire, but it's not enough to fool Red. However, she's just a little too fast, now, a little too used to his strategies, and he hadn't realized how equally matched they were until this moment.

By the time they're both on their third Pokémon, he's not panicking, but there's a tightness in his throat that he knows isn't showing on his face. He tells Snorlax to use rest and buy some time while he considers her, mind racing five, ten steps ahead. It's just a matter of breaking her focus—wearing her Pokémon down until they slip—forcing her into taking risks she can't afford.

He faints her third and fourth Pokémon after protracted struggles and several near-misses. Then, before Snorlax can rest again, quick claw allows her Kingdra to finish him off.

It takes too long to defeat Kingdra after that, and when Typlosion roars onto the field and attacks without even waiting for Lyra's instructions, his eyes fly up to meet hers. Lyra stares at him, cocks her head and makes a sharp gesture, and Typhlosion responds to the movement by backhanding Venusaur across the face, knocking it out.

Red feels a thrill of fear.

Pikachu is strong, but Typhlosion is powerful. Pikachu is lithe and impossible to catch, but Typhlosion is unmovable, patient after years of training for this moment. Lyra's silent body language is as clear as day, but then he realizes, his must be, too. They're evenly matched—

No, Red realizes, they're not. Not anymore.

There's a moment of shock, and then desperation. Every trick, every strategy, everything he has he uses in a concentrated burst.

Several minutes later, Pikachu tumbles into the snow and doesn't rise again.

Red is swamped by a wave of resignation. Then, as Lyra runs to him, crying, he begins to smile, and it surprises even him.

"I'm glad I met you," he says.




He leaves for home with Lyra's hand in his.

She's promised him a rematch.

—#4 ties in to the #4 of The Last Challenger. Also, I failed at writing the sunset. I was trying to describe this. (credit: 1, 2.)
—I follow fanon in thinking lol whoops my headcanon says that Red commands his Pokémon exclusively through body language when he battles. What I'm trying to express in the last one (and can't make clear now, because I can't add in sentences) is that Lyra has also developed this skill, much to Red's surprise.
—patcchi is an amazing, lovely & talented sweetheart who drew fanart of #3!! (original source.)



// written 30 Jul 2010 to 31 May 2011 (._.)
Like what you see? Consider watching southofreality!

Comments

[outstretched]

I didn't mean to diss it! I get mad at writers who talk badly about themselves, tbh, and I do my best to avoid doing it. I was just trying to explain why this fic seemed like an unfinished piece, because, well, it is. That doesn't mean it's bad! It is what it is, that's all.

I love time attack exercises because I'm the kind of person who never finishes things unless given a hard deadline, so I don't know if I would call it bravery. XD I also get most of my inspiration from music, so.

Oh gosh, thank you—they're super fun to write, honestly! I write Red sort of like a kuudere and my Lyra is also very moe and so the two of them together are just, cavities. Lyra brings a unique charm to any pairing you put her in. I think that's why she's my female fandom bicycle.

Thank you so much again!