A/N: Alright, I re-posted this chapter because something freakishly weird happened to my document. Instead of the original, WHICH WAS CORRECTED, it was replaced with my TOS fic's chapter. I almost jumped out my chair and started frantically searching for the document. I couldn't find the corrected one, but maybe I'll get back to this chapter whenever I can. But let me start explaining the things I remember. This a tensaishipping fic: a shipping between Steven and Ruby. If you don't like, don't read it. Steven's age is around 21-22 years of age, while Ruby is 11. This is a shota fanfic, so if you're not comfortable with these terms, turn back RIGHT NOW.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
【•Naturally Unexplainable•°】
︵
"With a thousand lies
And a good disguise
Hit 'em right between the eyes
Hit 'em right between the eyes
When you walk away
Nothing more to say
See the lightning in your eyes
See 'em running for their lives"
x./Offspring - You're gonna go far, kid\\.x
If what fate had in store was not one huge charade, Ruby would have thought better to avoid most situations. The pair, Ruby and Sapphire, were inseparable friends with polar personalities: Sapphire was a dignified little girl who wore exquisite dresses and takes pleasure to sit under a tree or watch an array of pokémon flying overhead, proving she had a horrible distaste to battles and rather would watch the serenity of the whirling winds swaying the trees back and forth. As for Ruby he was a loud child with a sense of battling spirit embedded in his soul, his passion burned brightest during a battle, his efforts to advance his partners skills not only made him feel fulfilled but his father would usually show even the slightest hint of a proud smile. Today, of all days, Ruby helped his friend pick several flowers and berries she wanted to customize for her new makeshift headband – he gradually obtained a problem with his eyesight through childhood, so as that sense failed him in modest occasions it made up with his other senses. Ruby's acute hearing caught the sounds of the wind soughing the trees of the grassy area, in a mere few seconds the winds impacted the trees louder than before. In one standard blink his scarlet eyes widened as large as saucers: a blue-red blur past before his face, any closer and the hind claws of the blur could have clawed his cheeks.
His mind fell into perplexity; before he had the chance to even begin to question what creature flew before him the sound of a blood-curling cry sent a shudder down his spine. He reacted beforehand, following his sense of hearing to follow the girlish scream. Heart pulsating, fist clenching, eyes moodily drawing into slits from the anger of his being born myopic, and that his chase towards the dragon-pokémon was utterly failing him. Although blurred, Ruby drew his focus on the brown dot flailing in the claws of the beast, making the child inwardly curse as he identified the pokémon to be a Salamence flying only higher and higher in the affinity of the cloudless-blue skies.
"Nana, Coco, use take down on Salamence! Ruru, use confusion!" he ordered his pokémon, hastily they did as they were told. The several attacks led the dragon flying closer to Ruby's level, giving him the advantage to swipe Sapphire from the blue-beast. As if Salamence recovered on the brink, its temper rose as it took its claws and swiped them down on Ruby's forehead. The blood seeped through the deep gashes, his bit down on his bottom to suppress the pain, his eyebrows were knit together and Ruby's mood darkened. "Give her back!"
His pokémon used the opportunity to give a powerful tackle attack on the blue-dragon, causing it to drop Sapphire and fly away enraged in another direction, but as for Sapphire she flinched at the sound of footsteps approaching her. Ruby's expression, the bloody wound on his forehead, the violent acts of a battle between boy and pokémon…she hugged her knees, her brown hair sticking to her creamy-white cheeks from the salty tears trickling down the corner of her red, puffy eyes. The girl sobbed loudly despite her tone of voice strained and terrified: "Scary…scary…" she repeated like a mantra and Ruby could only recoil his consoling hand and brought it to his chest, he averted his sight to the ground in shame. Ruby grew fearfully aware how this situation could have traumatized her from now onward, but her repeated words were directed solely on him: a monster, a brute.
The second mistake happened not too long after, the family traveled from Johto to Hoenn in a matter of time. Thus, Ruby became accustomed from distancing himself away from any sort of battling and instead following the path of the magnificent ways of pokémon contests. The splendorous feeling of walking on the catwalk to present one own's pokémon, the brilliance of watching moves performed with the grace of flawlessness, and all with the satisfaction of winning without any sort of violence intended – something Ruby felt calmly at peace with in order to remodel his personality if he were ever to meet Sapphire again to prove that even a brute like him could become a gentle human being. His three loyal partners were graced with all the attributes to win their specific category: cuteness, intelligence, and coolness. The scarlet-hued could only hope with time that his three pokémon could win all the categories with ease.
However all his efforts fell to naught with a battle-maniac of a father like his, Ruby's tolerance dimmed through the years as his father constantly attempted to drag him to battle training or scold him for the "such a minor dream" of entering and succeeding in pokémon contests. The tension soon escalated in the family as Norman grew concern over his son's absent masculinity in anything; he was told Ruby refused to get dirty in the mud for the sake of conserving his pokémons's gorgeous fur, he learned to sow and enjoy it more than the boy's own mother, and adamantly reject all bought clothing when he can make "so much more beautiful clothing."
Norman felt all his summed up conclusions were only the centerpiece of fearing the worst-case scenario or an unrelenting paranoia, Ruby's action were nothing to be worried about and only a "phase" as his wife always reminded him to ease his wavering suspicion. The train of thought drained when the doorbell rung loudly, Norman snapped back into reality and ordered his son to answer the door. The man ignored the echoing footsteps, the irritated moan, and finally the door creaking open—he couldn't hear their ambient chatter, but it was certainly a boy at the door. Norman assumed it could not be a friend, after all they just moved—and finally heard Ruby wholeheartedly laughing for the first time in years.
It brought the man a certain joy he could hear his son laughing instead on shutting himself from the rest of the world, concentrated on insignificant contests or every ridiculous piece of clothing he customized for his pokémon. Yes, everything was nice…for a while.
Norman had noticed this green-haired boy, Wally, had been frequently visiting the past two weeks since the two children met each other, except they always kept the door locked and their voices were so low it could not be heard from the other side of the door. His wife reminded him it was only a friendship, it was natural for even boys to want privacy from parents, but he could not shake off the strange feeling from the green-haired child. The next day Norman found the door has failed to close correctly and has been overlooked by the two boys—it dawned to him they were only eleven, what could possibly happen?—and just as Norman decided to put aside his solid distrust towards Wally he heard both of them talking:
Ruby: "-why!"
Wally: "It's my only hope to-can you-favor?"
Ruby: "Yeah?"
Their voices previously were heard in patches of a sentence, but whatever Wally was asking for was too low for Norman to hear, thus a strange sense of curiosity brought the man to peek from the gap of the door, and more than anything he knew he was right but wanted nothing more to believe his eyes were fooling him. His son, his Ruby, leaned forward and met Wally's lips for brief moment until Norman stormed inside the room. The door created such a loud noise the tremor followed through several rooms, leading his wife to rush inside the room in confusion and almost out of breath, she could not even have a moment to question Norman's peculiar behavior or the soulless eyes directed on Wally.
"Get out." he ordered Wally in a low-threatening whisper, to which the green-haired boy quickly scampered out of the room without a single glance back at Ruby or Norman. Caroline noticed her husband's eyebrows knitting together, his lips were pursed, and she could only grab him by the arm to restrain him from punishing Ruby right in front of her. No matter the circumstances he couldn't bring himself to fight off his wife but he only turned his heel and muttered something along the lines of "going out for a while" and "how disgusting." Ruby was left petrified and speechless; his tears could not flow from his eyes, the wrenching feeling in his gut only made his mood a lot worse.
The scarlet-eyed could not take anymore of this resentment, he was already conscious of his father's stringent parenting, unable to convey his feeling into words, or how he honestly upheld his homophobia but refused to show it unless it just went too out of line. The boy's trembling fingers were brought to his hat, bringing it lower to cover his vision partly from everything up the hall and beyond, he then jumped off his bed and reached the box hidden behind his cabinets. It was time to put an early birthday present to use for such an occurrence, however he felt a great disdain at the pair of shoes that were meant to be given by his father when his birthday arrived. Fastening the belt on his waist he whispered to his pokémon inside their capsules, "We're running away, guys." With one quick scan around his room Ruby grabbed all the essentials and stuffed them inside his yellow, shoulder-sling backpack.
Ruby took several cautious steps around the surroundings of his home, he couldn't trace a single voice—he almost cursed the fact he should have been more concentrated if anyone was watching him at the moment with Wally by the sound of their footsteps—he then speedily picked up his pace and finally met the fresh breeze that the outdoors introduced him to. With a final glance at his house Ruby took off by the support of his speedy shoes, he wasn't aware where he was going but it was better than being cooped up in the house and wait for what Norman had to lecture him about. The boy continued his velocity, grinning at the breeze passing his ears until he made an immediate halt at a tree for the strange sight of a rather large man shrieking at the approaching Mightyenas glowering hard the defenseless male, and due to his weight and constant struggles the branch broke down and spilled two pokéballs in plain sight.
The man grumbled, clutching his head with his palm and flushed with relief at seeing Ruby, "Are you a trainer? Aha…I'm in a real predicament here, could you lend a hand?"
Ruby, without a change of expression, simply responded flatly: "Nope." Furthermore he explained why he also didn't want to: he wished to preserve the refinement of his groomed pokémon.
With the following sequence of events he eventually did save the man, got to know him a little, gets to keep a Mudkip with mucus constantly dripping from its nose.
At least it wasn't all too bad, Ruby admitted with a shrug.
It has been little over a month since he had the time to recap on those events, a whole month since he ran away from home and effectively avoiding any sort of inkling for anyone to find his present whereabouts. He followed along wherever the contest halls could be found—he moodily sulked when he couldn't present himself on camera with his beloved pokémon, he couldn't risk an appearance on television—and from other occasions he would stop and witness a pokémon battle. Those trainers weren't so ruthless and appeared to be enjoying themselves, but Ruby just glared down at his hands and clenched them into a fist—for Sapphire, wherever she is, he changed for her and will remain that way. Ruby took a seat on the bench and laughed, he deluded his mind to thinking he liked Sapphire before, that he had a crush on her throughout childhood, but kissing Wally felt better than the thought of kissing Sapphire.
After all, Wally wanted a favor and Ruby granted him just that but it didn't mean the scarlet-hued felt particularly happy about kissing a boy, no less his first friend he met since he moved to Hoenn. It felt nice, sweet, innocent, but Ruby held the intuition it would have been better if it was someone else – who it should be even Ruby felt clueless about, regardless it couldn't be Wally or Sapphire. The boy brought out his pokémon, unconsciously brushing Nana's elegant noir fur, sometimes coiling his finger that sidetracked him from his deep absorption of his previous thought. Within moments Ruby held his down in shame, his father would never accept or even bother to understand his curiosity towards the opposite sex.
Ruby shoved his hand in his backpack, picking out his pokénav he received from Mr. Stone at Devon Corporation out of generosity as a trade to deliver a letter to someone named Steven Stone, oddly enough Mr. Stone examined Ruby longer than a standard glance and wrote something down quickly and inserted said paper along with the original contents of the letter. Apparently Ruby was the only lucky passenger able to ship off to Dewford town for returning the elderly man's wingull that had its wings caught in branches. The man, Mr. Briney, ultimately decided to take a few days vacation at the small island. Throughout the sea voyage Ruby pressed his arms on the boat's wooden railings, concentrated partly on his pokémon playing, the calming body of water, and his father's last words.
"How disgusting."
The boy faked a grin, "Guess I am, dad."
His red orbs peered down at the letter in his hands, the front left stark white without a single design and the only piece present are the typed, bold letter that read: STEVEN STONE.
Ruby lolled his head, picturing the appearance of the receiver to divert his feelings away from his father's reaction. Shuffling back to his room he left the letter on the nightstand near his bedside, his eyelids eventually growing heavy, "Steven Stone, huh?" he said sleepily, and finally falling into a deep slumber that gradually lead him up in a horrible nightmare about his father – only today it was different, he actually slept though the flying hours.