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badass_tiger) wrote2021-11-28 12:30 am
badass_tiger) wrote2021-11-28 12:30 am
26. pancakes
Prompt: Any Fandom | Any Characters/Pairings | “I thought you left” “Nope, just making pancakes”
Word Count: 2.1k
Author/Team:badass_tiger
Title: pancakes
Fandom/Original: Pokemon (Leon/Raihan)
Rating: Gen
Triggers: NA
Summary: The morning after Admiration.
ConCrit: N
Notes: kinda ooc so no cc :')
They had spent nights together in the past. Not in the same bed, of course - this had been the first time for that - but they were well acquainted with one another's flats, and they had often had to spend the night in the same hotel for opening ceremonies and exhibition matches. Raihan had expected to wake up to an empty bed, but when he did, he thought about the interrupted Championship Match, and panicked. What if Leon had decided to go ahead with it in a fit of madness? He'd barely been qualified to have sex the night before. Raihan had taken his shirt off to find a map of wounds that made him seriously reconsider, and he might not have gone through with it if Leon hadn't been begging by then.
He sprinted down the stairs.
There were sounds in the kitchen. The hum of an electric kettle, the sizzle of a pan, and the clash of cutlery. Raihan relaxed. So Leon hadn't woken up completely out of his mind. He was probably still a little crazy though, judging from the noise. Raihan was pretty sure that he was the one who should be making breakfast. He opened the door.
Leon looked over his shoulder and his face lit up. Raihan almost couldn't believe that expression was being directed at him.
'Hi,' Leon said.
'Hi. I thought you left.'
'Nope, just making pancakes. Want a cuppa?'
'Sure.'
It felt somewhat surreal. Raihan considered sitting down at the table, then opted for going over to the stove to look over Leon's shoulder. In a pan, a spoonful of batter was slowly solidifying into a pancake.
'Do you like pancakes?' Leon said with an apprehension that jerked Raihan back to reality with exasperation.
'Do you know anyone who doesn't?'
'I guess not.' Leon grinned. Much better.
'I didn't know you could cook,' Raihan said, not wanting to let the conversation stop.
'Of course I know how to cook! Sonia taught me a lot when we were on the Gym Challenge together. I've lived alone for years, so I had to learn.'
'You can't live off of takeaway kebabs like me?'
'That is exactly why you look like a stick figure instead of a healthy specimen of a man,' Leon said, giving him a meaningful prod with the handle of the spatula. 'Can I count on you to flip this while I make tea?'
'No. I'll make tea.'
'You know how to make tea?'
Raihan elbowed him in the side, and he laughed.
Some of the alien feeling returned as Raihan rummaged for tea things and silence fell between them. This was a part of sleeping with Leon that Raihan had never thought about before. The stuff that came before, he'd fantasised about extensively. Some of the stuff that followed, like morning kisses and maybe even a quickie before they had to leave for the day, sometimes. But not the part that involved them making breakfast together before he'd even brushed his teeth.
They exchanged only a few more words, about milk and sugar and lemons, before they sat down to eat. That is, Raihan sat down, and Leon came to stand behind his chair, then put his arms around him to put pancakes on his plate. Raihan held his breath. They had been so physically close to one another the night before, and yet their proximity now put him on edge. Leon sprinkled icing sugar and lemon juice onto pancakes all while pressed against Raihan's back, and Raihan heard himself mutter, 'What are you doing?'
'Serving you pancakes,' Leon said nonchalantly.
Was he doing it on purpose? There was no way he wasn't doing it on purpose. Then again, Raihan was the one with all the muddled feelings, not Leon. It could well be that the night before was nothing to Leon, now that he had returned to his senses, and he would be doing this anyway if Raihan had simply come over for breakfast in the morning.
Raihan tried not to think about how nice it felt, and tried to focus on something more mundane, like the ridiculous amount of sugar Leon was piling onto his plate, or the mug that he had wrapped his fingers around and was now slowly burning him.
'Is that enough?' Leon said.
'Yeah,' Raihan said, and coughed to hide how strangled it sounded.
Leon would be the death of him. He was absolutely sure of that.
'Where do you think I would go anyway?' Leon said, sitting down next to him.
Raihan looked up with a start. 'Huh?'
'You said you thought I'd left.'
'Oh? Yeah, I thought you might have lost your mind in the night and decided to have the Championship Match today after all.'
'Do the people you sleep with usually go mad afterwards?'
'Yeah, 'cus I'm so good. They go barmy if I don't give them more right away.'
Leon laughed. 'Well, in that case, why didn't you?'
'You looked so beat up yesterday that I thought it might be a bad idea. To be honest, I thought it might be a bad idea the first time too.'
'Nah. I feel great today, so you don't have to worry.'
Put at ease by their banter, Raihan picked up his tea and took a sip to hide the grin that was threatening to break out on his face. To think that he was sitting here, flirting with Leon, was beyond belief. It was almost, just almost, better than sex. He wondered if Leon wanted more of him after all, but he couldn't tell; it might well be that it would remain nothing more than an inside joke between them from now on. Still, that wouldn't be too bad. It would be better than forgetting, at any rate.
'I'm going to meet Hop for lunch,' Leon said. 'Or maybe he'll come over. Honestly, I would have tried to have the Championship Match today if I thought Hop would let me get away with it, but he and Victor are pretty beat up too.'
'You need your little brother to take care of you?' Raihan said with a raised eyebrow.
'I might as well admit to it. He and Victor were the ones who saved the day yesterday when I couldn't, after all.'
Leon spoke calmly, holding Raihan's gaze steadily as he spoke. But he was being too careful. Perhaps their intimacy of the night before had made Raihan more in tune to Leon's emotional state. He could tell that Leon didn't feel happy saying it.
Feeling compelled to say something, to let Leon know that he understood that something wasn't right, he said, 'What's wrong with that? It's not too bad to rely on other people once in a while.'
'Yeah, I guess not.' Leon smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but it was a smile nonetheless. 'Relying on you feels pretty good.'
'I'm pretty happy to let you lean on me, but I don't know if I'm the best person for that. I'm not exactly famous for my trustworthiness.'
'Maybe that's why it's more fun,' Leon said, and Raihan laughed. 'Come on, don't say that. What you said yesterday - it really helped, you know?'
'Was it what I said or what I did?'
'Fine. It was both.' This time, Leon's grin was real, and as bright as the sun summoned by a Torkoal's Drought. 'But I - I really appreciate it. I'd like to be able to rely on you again if I start saying stupid things.'
'What do you mean by that?' Raihan spoke more seriously than he meant to. He didn't want to press his feelings on Leon, to insist that things be more between them than Leon wanted them to be. He wanted to be okay with anything Leon wanted to give to him. But it was difficult not to hope, when it felt like he wanted was inches away from his fingertips.
Leon didn't say anything for a while. He looked down at his plate and began cutting up his pancakes, but then he looked away and his gaze became adrift.
'I don't know,' he said at last.
Raihan rolled his eyes. To be fair, Leon had been through a lot in the past few days. Perhaps he shouldn't be asking him to consider a relationship so soon.
'It's fine,' Raihan said. 'Whatever you want from me, I'll go along with it. I just want to know so that I don't get my hopes up.'
'After you let me rely on you last night, I don't want to let you down. You're too important to me for that.' Leon said, meeting his gaze again. The steel in his eyes was unlike anything Raihan had ever seen before. 'I never thought about going out with you before, but I really like you. I just - I just don't know if -' Leon faltered, and it suddenly dawned on Raihan what he was trying to say.
'You idiot.' Raihan struggled to speak through the mixture of anguish and exasperation. 'This is about you thinking you're not good enough again? I always knew you were spacey, but I thought you were pretty put-together, all things considered.'
He was horrified when Leon said, 'Yeah. I'm not as great as people think.'
'That's not what I meant. If I knew that you didn't know just how great you really are, I - I would've told you.' Raihan had reached out and grabbed the front of Leon's shirt before he realised he had moved. 'You don't really think that, do you? This is all coming from Eternatus - from Chairman Rose -' Leon winced, '- isn't it?'
'What happened yesterday just made me realise it.'
'No!' Raihan jumped to his feet, dragging Leon with him. 'So you couldn't save the day - so what? No one asked you to. I love you because you're strong and kind and nice to kids and all that crap. I never loved you because I thought you could save the world.'
'Raihan ...' Leon looked so vulnerable. A fierce protectiveness surged through Raihan at the sight. He never wanted to see Leon make that kind of face ever again, and yet he relished the fact that he was seeing it now. 'You mean that, don't you?'
'I've never said anything I don't mean. I'm not clever enough to lie.'
A smile - a very small smile - curled the corner of Leon's mouth. 'You're not clever enough to lie, but you're clever enough to know what to say to cheer me up?'
'I'm just telling you the truth. Always seems to work on you somehow.'
'Your truths have a way with me. And you call yourself unreliable.' Leon covered the hand holding his shirt with his own. Raihan relaxed his grip and was taken aback when Leon intertwined their fingers. He stared at their joined hands as Leon said, 'Thanks. You get mad when I apologise, so I won't. I'll just say that - that it makes me really happy when you say you love me. If I'm going to be in a relationship with you, I'll do it properly. I want you to be able to rely on me too.'
'I already do,' Raihan said. Leon looked surprised. 'I rely on you to be my rival, to be your strongest whenever we battle. Even if we're just hanging out, it's always fun. That's all I want from you.'
Leon squeezed his hand so tightly, it was almost painful. It felt so real and Raihan loved it.
'The next time we go out just the two of us,' Leon said, 'it'll be a date.'
'Good.'
Leon leaned forward and kissed him. Though they had kissed so many times the night before, the affirmation, now, that Leon really wanted to be with him, made him feel something that was completely new and alien to him, in the most wonderful way possible.
'You're so awesome,' Raihan murmured against his lips. Leon laughed.
'Thanks. You too.'
It was a few moments before they parted. Leon didn't seem able to stop himself from pressing small kisses to his lips, his nose, and his cheeks, and Raihan definitely didn't want to stop him anytime soon. Eventually, his stomach won out.
'I'm hungry.'
'Me too,' Leon said, but he didn't stop his trail along Raihan's jaw.
'I want to eat before you go meet your brother.'
At last, Leon unstuck himself from Raihan's face. 'You should come with.'
'To have lunch with your brother?'
'Yeah!'
'I won't be in the way?'
'Of course not.'
Knowing how much Leon loved his brother, Raihan was flattered to be invited. Maybe he shouldn't be, but he was.
'I'd like that,' he said. Leon grinned and squeezed his hand again.
It probably wouldn't be easy. Leon would undoubtedly want to pick up the pieces his mentor had left behind, and perhaps they would hardly have time to be together in the future. But at least Raihan could make sure to be there whenever Leon needed someone to kiss him better, and that was all he cared about.
Word Count: 2.1k
Author/Team:
badass_tigerTitle: pancakes
Fandom/Original: Pokemon (Leon/Raihan)
Rating: Gen
Triggers: NA
Summary: The morning after Admiration.
ConCrit: N
Notes: kinda ooc so no cc :')
They had spent nights together in the past. Not in the same bed, of course - this had been the first time for that - but they were well acquainted with one another's flats, and they had often had to spend the night in the same hotel for opening ceremonies and exhibition matches. Raihan had expected to wake up to an empty bed, but when he did, he thought about the interrupted Championship Match, and panicked. What if Leon had decided to go ahead with it in a fit of madness? He'd barely been qualified to have sex the night before. Raihan had taken his shirt off to find a map of wounds that made him seriously reconsider, and he might not have gone through with it if Leon hadn't been begging by then.
He sprinted down the stairs.
There were sounds in the kitchen. The hum of an electric kettle, the sizzle of a pan, and the clash of cutlery. Raihan relaxed. So Leon hadn't woken up completely out of his mind. He was probably still a little crazy though, judging from the noise. Raihan was pretty sure that he was the one who should be making breakfast. He opened the door.
Leon looked over his shoulder and his face lit up. Raihan almost couldn't believe that expression was being directed at him.
'Hi,' Leon said.
'Hi. I thought you left.'
'Nope, just making pancakes. Want a cuppa?'
'Sure.'
It felt somewhat surreal. Raihan considered sitting down at the table, then opted for going over to the stove to look over Leon's shoulder. In a pan, a spoonful of batter was slowly solidifying into a pancake.
'Do you like pancakes?' Leon said with an apprehension that jerked Raihan back to reality with exasperation.
'Do you know anyone who doesn't?'
'I guess not.' Leon grinned. Much better.
'I didn't know you could cook,' Raihan said, not wanting to let the conversation stop.
'Of course I know how to cook! Sonia taught me a lot when we were on the Gym Challenge together. I've lived alone for years, so I had to learn.'
'You can't live off of takeaway kebabs like me?'
'That is exactly why you look like a stick figure instead of a healthy specimen of a man,' Leon said, giving him a meaningful prod with the handle of the spatula. 'Can I count on you to flip this while I make tea?'
'No. I'll make tea.'
'You know how to make tea?'
Raihan elbowed him in the side, and he laughed.
Some of the alien feeling returned as Raihan rummaged for tea things and silence fell between them. This was a part of sleeping with Leon that Raihan had never thought about before. The stuff that came before, he'd fantasised about extensively. Some of the stuff that followed, like morning kisses and maybe even a quickie before they had to leave for the day, sometimes. But not the part that involved them making breakfast together before he'd even brushed his teeth.
They exchanged only a few more words, about milk and sugar and lemons, before they sat down to eat. That is, Raihan sat down, and Leon came to stand behind his chair, then put his arms around him to put pancakes on his plate. Raihan held his breath. They had been so physically close to one another the night before, and yet their proximity now put him on edge. Leon sprinkled icing sugar and lemon juice onto pancakes all while pressed against Raihan's back, and Raihan heard himself mutter, 'What are you doing?'
'Serving you pancakes,' Leon said nonchalantly.
Was he doing it on purpose? There was no way he wasn't doing it on purpose. Then again, Raihan was the one with all the muddled feelings, not Leon. It could well be that the night before was nothing to Leon, now that he had returned to his senses, and he would be doing this anyway if Raihan had simply come over for breakfast in the morning.
Raihan tried not to think about how nice it felt, and tried to focus on something more mundane, like the ridiculous amount of sugar Leon was piling onto his plate, or the mug that he had wrapped his fingers around and was now slowly burning him.
'Is that enough?' Leon said.
'Yeah,' Raihan said, and coughed to hide how strangled it sounded.
Leon would be the death of him. He was absolutely sure of that.
'Where do you think I would go anyway?' Leon said, sitting down next to him.
Raihan looked up with a start. 'Huh?'
'You said you thought I'd left.'
'Oh? Yeah, I thought you might have lost your mind in the night and decided to have the Championship Match today after all.'
'Do the people you sleep with usually go mad afterwards?'
'Yeah, 'cus I'm so good. They go barmy if I don't give them more right away.'
Leon laughed. 'Well, in that case, why didn't you?'
'You looked so beat up yesterday that I thought it might be a bad idea. To be honest, I thought it might be a bad idea the first time too.'
'Nah. I feel great today, so you don't have to worry.'
Put at ease by their banter, Raihan picked up his tea and took a sip to hide the grin that was threatening to break out on his face. To think that he was sitting here, flirting with Leon, was beyond belief. It was almost, just almost, better than sex. He wondered if Leon wanted more of him after all, but he couldn't tell; it might well be that it would remain nothing more than an inside joke between them from now on. Still, that wouldn't be too bad. It would be better than forgetting, at any rate.
'I'm going to meet Hop for lunch,' Leon said. 'Or maybe he'll come over. Honestly, I would have tried to have the Championship Match today if I thought Hop would let me get away with it, but he and Victor are pretty beat up too.'
'You need your little brother to take care of you?' Raihan said with a raised eyebrow.
'I might as well admit to it. He and Victor were the ones who saved the day yesterday when I couldn't, after all.'
Leon spoke calmly, holding Raihan's gaze steadily as he spoke. But he was being too careful. Perhaps their intimacy of the night before had made Raihan more in tune to Leon's emotional state. He could tell that Leon didn't feel happy saying it.
Feeling compelled to say something, to let Leon know that he understood that something wasn't right, he said, 'What's wrong with that? It's not too bad to rely on other people once in a while.'
'Yeah, I guess not.' Leon smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but it was a smile nonetheless. 'Relying on you feels pretty good.'
'I'm pretty happy to let you lean on me, but I don't know if I'm the best person for that. I'm not exactly famous for my trustworthiness.'
'Maybe that's why it's more fun,' Leon said, and Raihan laughed. 'Come on, don't say that. What you said yesterday - it really helped, you know?'
'Was it what I said or what I did?'
'Fine. It was both.' This time, Leon's grin was real, and as bright as the sun summoned by a Torkoal's Drought. 'But I - I really appreciate it. I'd like to be able to rely on you again if I start saying stupid things.'
'What do you mean by that?' Raihan spoke more seriously than he meant to. He didn't want to press his feelings on Leon, to insist that things be more between them than Leon wanted them to be. He wanted to be okay with anything Leon wanted to give to him. But it was difficult not to hope, when it felt like he wanted was inches away from his fingertips.
Leon didn't say anything for a while. He looked down at his plate and began cutting up his pancakes, but then he looked away and his gaze became adrift.
'I don't know,' he said at last.
Raihan rolled his eyes. To be fair, Leon had been through a lot in the past few days. Perhaps he shouldn't be asking him to consider a relationship so soon.
'It's fine,' Raihan said. 'Whatever you want from me, I'll go along with it. I just want to know so that I don't get my hopes up.'
'After you let me rely on you last night, I don't want to let you down. You're too important to me for that.' Leon said, meeting his gaze again. The steel in his eyes was unlike anything Raihan had ever seen before. 'I never thought about going out with you before, but I really like you. I just - I just don't know if -' Leon faltered, and it suddenly dawned on Raihan what he was trying to say.
'You idiot.' Raihan struggled to speak through the mixture of anguish and exasperation. 'This is about you thinking you're not good enough again? I always knew you were spacey, but I thought you were pretty put-together, all things considered.'
He was horrified when Leon said, 'Yeah. I'm not as great as people think.'
'That's not what I meant. If I knew that you didn't know just how great you really are, I - I would've told you.' Raihan had reached out and grabbed the front of Leon's shirt before he realised he had moved. 'You don't really think that, do you? This is all coming from Eternatus - from Chairman Rose -' Leon winced, '- isn't it?'
'What happened yesterday just made me realise it.'
'No!' Raihan jumped to his feet, dragging Leon with him. 'So you couldn't save the day - so what? No one asked you to. I love you because you're strong and kind and nice to kids and all that crap. I never loved you because I thought you could save the world.'
'Raihan ...' Leon looked so vulnerable. A fierce protectiveness surged through Raihan at the sight. He never wanted to see Leon make that kind of face ever again, and yet he relished the fact that he was seeing it now. 'You mean that, don't you?'
'I've never said anything I don't mean. I'm not clever enough to lie.'
A smile - a very small smile - curled the corner of Leon's mouth. 'You're not clever enough to lie, but you're clever enough to know what to say to cheer me up?'
'I'm just telling you the truth. Always seems to work on you somehow.'
'Your truths have a way with me. And you call yourself unreliable.' Leon covered the hand holding his shirt with his own. Raihan relaxed his grip and was taken aback when Leon intertwined their fingers. He stared at their joined hands as Leon said, 'Thanks. You get mad when I apologise, so I won't. I'll just say that - that it makes me really happy when you say you love me. If I'm going to be in a relationship with you, I'll do it properly. I want you to be able to rely on me too.'
'I already do,' Raihan said. Leon looked surprised. 'I rely on you to be my rival, to be your strongest whenever we battle. Even if we're just hanging out, it's always fun. That's all I want from you.'
Leon squeezed his hand so tightly, it was almost painful. It felt so real and Raihan loved it.
'The next time we go out just the two of us,' Leon said, 'it'll be a date.'
'Good.'
Leon leaned forward and kissed him. Though they had kissed so many times the night before, the affirmation, now, that Leon really wanted to be with him, made him feel something that was completely new and alien to him, in the most wonderful way possible.
'You're so awesome,' Raihan murmured against his lips. Leon laughed.
'Thanks. You too.'
It was a few moments before they parted. Leon didn't seem able to stop himself from pressing small kisses to his lips, his nose, and his cheeks, and Raihan definitely didn't want to stop him anytime soon. Eventually, his stomach won out.
'I'm hungry.'
'Me too,' Leon said, but he didn't stop his trail along Raihan's jaw.
'I want to eat before you go meet your brother.'
At last, Leon unstuck himself from Raihan's face. 'You should come with.'
'To have lunch with your brother?'
'Yeah!'
'I won't be in the way?'
'Of course not.'
Knowing how much Leon loved his brother, Raihan was flattered to be invited. Maybe he shouldn't be, but he was.
'I'd like that,' he said. Leon grinned and squeezed his hand again.
It probably wouldn't be easy. Leon would undoubtedly want to pick up the pieces his mentor had left behind, and perhaps they would hardly have time to be together in the future. But at least Raihan could make sure to be there whenever Leon needed someone to kiss him better, and that was all he cared about.