Okay, so, this is pretty old -- started back in, like, '07 -- but I finished it recently and thought it was kinda cute, so I figured, eh, why not.

Title Dolls
Summary volknerxroark ; He really was horrible at mining, Roark decided.
Rating T I guess.
Warning(s) Volkner and Roark being dumb together (surprise, surprise). Also, insurmountable bits of cheesiness.
Disclaimer Not mine.

:-:-:-:-:

He really was horrible at mining, Roark decided, watching as the wall collapsed for the third time in a row with only a single small blue sphere extracted before its demise.

Volkner let loose a string of what he thought were quiet obscenities, yanking open the neck of his satchel and unhappily letting the sphere drop in with a plinking sound. This wasn't fair! He'd been trying to collect spheres for what was surely hours on end (a smart glance at his Pokétch would have revealed it had only been, in fact, a couple of minutes over an hour) and had every single bulge collapse on him before he could retrieve, at most, maybe two decent sized spheres from it.

This was extremely frustrating.

Volkner ran his fingers over a stretch of rock where he thought he'd seen a bulge, and sure enough, there was one; he set his bags down and -- carefully -- began to chip away at the surface, praying that the wall wouldn't collapse before any of the lustrous orbs could be found. His prayers were ignored as -- moments after managing to pry a large pale sphere from the wall, to his enormous enjoyment -- the wall fell disastrously, a few clumps of thickly meshed together dirt landing in his hair.

"Mother fu---"

"Volkner?"

Volkner jumped, the curse abandoned and the hand in his hair ceasing its attempt to purge the strands of dirt. He whirled on his heel, almost toppling over as his foot caught in one of his various bags' straps, but catching himself in time. "R-Roark? What are you doing here?" Roark stared at him as if he'd said something incredibly stupid, and Volkner realised with a blush that he had, considering what type of Pokémon the younger gym leader trained.

"What are you doing, Volkner?" Roark asked, carefully walking over. From behind him, Volkner realised that he must have had his Cranidos out as usual, for he could hear the Pokémon's familiar trotting footsteps as it followed its trainer.

"Errr... digging for... spheres," Volkner muttered, "I thought that seemed obvious enough..."

"You're certainly not doing a very good job of it," Roark commented, a teasing smile on his face. "Anyway, I don't think your secret base can fit many more things before it explodes, Volkner..."

"I never said it was for my base," Volkner pointed out, already searching around for another bulge. "I could just be going to find someone to trade them TMs for. Or it could be for someone else's base. Or I could be getting---"

"Okay, okay, I get your point, smart ass," Roark snapped, though it was playfully done so. Cranidos let out a low bray beside him, and Roark glanced up at the stretch of wall Volkner was currently inspecting in a very scrutinizing way. "Here, do you want me to help you? I'm sure I'd be able to help you get a l---"

"No!" Roark gave him an odd look, and Volkner grinned nervously at him. "I... I'm digging for spheres so I can get you something for your secret base, okay?"

"Oh." Roark raised an amused eyebrow; beside him, Cranidos let out a snort that surely must have been from laughter. "Thanks. But... In that case, why don't you just... buy one?"

Volkner was silent for a long few moments as he turned back to the wall, before he answered: "If I bought it for you, it wouldn't mean as much as me earning it for you."

Roark watched only half-interestedly as Volkner's hand spidered over the wall, knocking loose small clouds of dust occasionally as he searched for a bulging spot. He was more interested -- and entertained -- by the way he was picking at the spots he found (all so very wrong) and the way he would get frustrated at only retrieving a small sphere or two. "You know..." He paused briefly to smile at Volkner's jump as he stepped forward and covered Volkner's pick-axe bearing hand with his own. "I could help you do it better."

"But..." Volkner fell silent as Roark released his hand for a moment, stooped for the small hammer, and replaced the pick with it. "Roark..."

"First," Roark began, ignoring Volkner's protests as he took Volkner's tool-bearing hand and tapped the wall lightly, experimentally, "well, there are a lot of different ways to do it... but I personally say to tap away as much of the hard soil that you can with the hammer and when you find things, carefully get them out with the pick..." The hammer tapped the wall again a few times, small clumps of dirt falling away with each strike. Behind a small cluster of dirt, Volkner thought he could see a glimmer of green...

"... Wow." Volkner watched in slight amazement as Roark unearthed a second sphere, then a third, then a fourth; Roark released his hand and turned to him, beaming.

"You see, it's really quite easy -- and now that you can see them, you can pick them out a lot more... care... ful... Volk..ner... what are you... doing...?" For Volkner's hands had found Roark's shoulders, pushing him back gently against the wall he was just working on; Roark squirmed slightly, frowning at how the spheres and bumps in the wall dug into his back uncomfortably. "Volkner?"

"You're pretty good at picking spheres," Volkner said lowly, a grin slowly pulling at his lips, "but how do you fare with picking locks? 'Cause you're on your way to burglaring into my heart."

There was a brief pause as Volkner kept grinning, and Roark kept staring in disbelief before barely containing a snort of laughter, his shoulders shaking with the effort. "That has got to be the lamest thing I've ever heard anyone say, ever..." Volkner's smile faltered a bit, but Roark beamed at him. "...but it works for you. Silly." His hands reached up to remove a piece of dirt from Volkner's hair, and Volkner huffed, blowing the lock of hair back.

"So, what do you say? Want to continue your ways of thievery and flat-out steal my heart?"

"I may not give it back," Roark warned, smirking.

"That's fine by me."

"Then, by all means..."

Cranidos could have bashed his hard-plated skull into the Underground's walls a few times at how lame his trainer was -- not to mention how gross he was being with his boyfriend.