- Joined
- Nov 29, 2023
- Messages
- 5
- Reaction score
- 14
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- It/Its
- Refer To Profile
(hey all! this is a very brief little cuteboneshipping (Hau/Gladion) one-shot i wrote to ring in the new year with my personal favorite pairing in the franchise. i hope you all enjoy it! if you'd prefer to check it out on AO3, here's a link to it there. happy new year, and here's to 2024!)
You remember the day you met him, and remember-- as if it happened just now-- staring at his smile and wanting nothing more than to wipe it off his face. So carefree and joyous, that high bark of a laugh breaking the serenity of the air, it fired you up inside like nothing had since the night you ran, carrying a Poké Ball and nothing else. It fired you up even more than watching Guzma berate those weaker than him, even more than when he'd berate you, you'd challenge him in a fit of rage only to watch him tear you apart every time, leaving you and Type: Null to run off and hide with tails between your legs.
Something in his face made you want to instill that exact same hopelessness in him, to make him feel beat-down, and yet.
When you challenged him that first time, he didn't care. He seemed to enjoy the battle, even as you tore his own team apart, and all he had to say after was a compliment. You didn't care that he thought you were strong-- you cared that he wasn't. Moon was the stronger trainer, easily, but she didn't care either. Her silence might have been deafening, but Hau's sound was worse. Ten times-- a thousand times-- a billion times worse, hearing him laugh and feeling him grab your shoulders like some kind of friend after you and Type: Null wiped his team without a second thought.
You should have known then, but you didn't.
You only thought of him in passing until the Aether Foundation, when you felt the world coming down around you. Again, Moon's silence remained deafening, but her doe-eyed stare wasn't just quiet-- it was terrified. She was afraid. You couldn't bear to see the eyes of someone who hadn't lost a battle in her life so filled with fear. You had sat on the elevator platform, and in a moment of anguish, wondering-- fearing-- what could be happening to Lillie while you weren't there to protect her, you buried your head in your hands.
And then his hand found your shoulder again.
"It's going to be okay," He said. "We're gonna find Lillie. I promise!"
You looked up at him, and for the first time, he smiled and you didn't want to wipe it off his face. You never wanted that smile to end. It stopped being the bane of your existence and started being the very sunlight, the air that you breathed.
You should have known then, too, but you didn't.
The next months of your life were chaos. You spent much of it alone, and whatever you didn't spend alone, you were with Lillie. It wasn't until Moon was squarely head of the Pokémon League, and you and Lillie had talked about her going to Kanto for what felt like weeks, that life got quiet again.
You and him spent time together then. Time as friends-- you, him, and Moon spent almost every day together, even when the summer came to an end and classes began. So many nights spent in Moon's bedroom watching her play Pikmin and sharing the bags of snacks her mother would bring home (and trying to keep your voices down when Pikmin was switched out for Pokken and someone decided that Chandelure wasn't banned anymore), and mornings listening to Hala's stories and eating breakfast in his foyer, skimming TV channels and lazily draping yourselves over one another.
You hadn't been hugged so often since you were a child.
One day, after classes had begun and about a week after Lillie video-called the three of you from an island south of Kanto, Hau came to you in somewhat of a fluster. You thought he was going to challenge you to a battle, which you would have accepted gracefully, but instead he asked you to meet him at a malasada shop at an exact time the very next day. You didn't have much better going on, and-- given your role as Kukui's new assistant mostly meant you were cleaning up after Rockruff-- actually beat him to the malasada shop. You remember sitting in the seat, poking at something you'd ordered just so the waitress would leave you alone, and seeing him enter, and then all at once--
realizing.
He sat across from you and prattled on about something, and you regret not listening, but you were lost in him. His eyes, his smile-- by Arceus, his smile. It never seemed to end. When he looked up, and met your eyes, it was like a scene out of a movie, the sort that Moon would roll her eyes at but watch with bated breath until the credits rolled. The two of you were silent for one long moment.
"I love you," you said.
"I know," he said.
And then he laughed, and you laughed, and his hand interlocked with yours. His smile then matched yours-- twin suns, threatening to blind the whole of Melemele Island. Kukui said it when you came back to the lab; your face was lit up like a Solar Beam on a Sunny Day.
And now here you sit, in Hala's living room, camped out for what feels like the thousandth time. You can only hope there will be a thousand more. He's asleep on the couch behind you, and Moon is asleep wrapped up in a blanket like a Cascoon in front of you. The TV is muted, and a late-night cartoon is brightening the room only slightly. The Kricketots chirp outside in a dull hum. Hau sleeps like a child-- he's practically incapable of dozing off without something in his arms. Usually, it's Raichu. Tonight, it's you-- your shoulders, at least. You rest your hand on his, and your head in his elbow, and close your eyes.
Your name is Gladion, and in Hau's arms, you finally feel like you belong somewhere.
Something in his face made you want to instill that exact same hopelessness in him, to make him feel beat-down, and yet.
When you challenged him that first time, he didn't care. He seemed to enjoy the battle, even as you tore his own team apart, and all he had to say after was a compliment. You didn't care that he thought you were strong-- you cared that he wasn't. Moon was the stronger trainer, easily, but she didn't care either. Her silence might have been deafening, but Hau's sound was worse. Ten times-- a thousand times-- a billion times worse, hearing him laugh and feeling him grab your shoulders like some kind of friend after you and Type: Null wiped his team without a second thought.
You should have known then, but you didn't.
You only thought of him in passing until the Aether Foundation, when you felt the world coming down around you. Again, Moon's silence remained deafening, but her doe-eyed stare wasn't just quiet-- it was terrified. She was afraid. You couldn't bear to see the eyes of someone who hadn't lost a battle in her life so filled with fear. You had sat on the elevator platform, and in a moment of anguish, wondering-- fearing-- what could be happening to Lillie while you weren't there to protect her, you buried your head in your hands.
And then his hand found your shoulder again.
"It's going to be okay," He said. "We're gonna find Lillie. I promise!"
You looked up at him, and for the first time, he smiled and you didn't want to wipe it off his face. You never wanted that smile to end. It stopped being the bane of your existence and started being the very sunlight, the air that you breathed.
You should have known then, too, but you didn't.
The next months of your life were chaos. You spent much of it alone, and whatever you didn't spend alone, you were with Lillie. It wasn't until Moon was squarely head of the Pokémon League, and you and Lillie had talked about her going to Kanto for what felt like weeks, that life got quiet again.
You and him spent time together then. Time as friends-- you, him, and Moon spent almost every day together, even when the summer came to an end and classes began. So many nights spent in Moon's bedroom watching her play Pikmin and sharing the bags of snacks her mother would bring home (and trying to keep your voices down when Pikmin was switched out for Pokken and someone decided that Chandelure wasn't banned anymore), and mornings listening to Hala's stories and eating breakfast in his foyer, skimming TV channels and lazily draping yourselves over one another.
You hadn't been hugged so often since you were a child.
One day, after classes had begun and about a week after Lillie video-called the three of you from an island south of Kanto, Hau came to you in somewhat of a fluster. You thought he was going to challenge you to a battle, which you would have accepted gracefully, but instead he asked you to meet him at a malasada shop at an exact time the very next day. You didn't have much better going on, and-- given your role as Kukui's new assistant mostly meant you were cleaning up after Rockruff-- actually beat him to the malasada shop. You remember sitting in the seat, poking at something you'd ordered just so the waitress would leave you alone, and seeing him enter, and then all at once--
realizing.
He sat across from you and prattled on about something, and you regret not listening, but you were lost in him. His eyes, his smile-- by Arceus, his smile. It never seemed to end. When he looked up, and met your eyes, it was like a scene out of a movie, the sort that Moon would roll her eyes at but watch with bated breath until the credits rolled. The two of you were silent for one long moment.
"I love you," you said.
"I know," he said.
And then he laughed, and you laughed, and his hand interlocked with yours. His smile then matched yours-- twin suns, threatening to blind the whole of Melemele Island. Kukui said it when you came back to the lab; your face was lit up like a Solar Beam on a Sunny Day.
And now here you sit, in Hala's living room, camped out for what feels like the thousandth time. You can only hope there will be a thousand more. He's asleep on the couch behind you, and Moon is asleep wrapped up in a blanket like a Cascoon in front of you. The TV is muted, and a late-night cartoon is brightening the room only slightly. The Kricketots chirp outside in a dull hum. Hau sleeps like a child-- he's practically incapable of dozing off without something in his arms. Usually, it's Raichu. Tonight, it's you-- your shoulders, at least. You rest your hand on his, and your head in his elbow, and close your eyes.
Your name is Gladion, and in Hau's arms, you finally feel like you belong somewhere.
