A/n: Well, here I am shipping the sacred again...and, for the first time since my unpublished prepubescent blatherings, writing something that is(partly)in the world of the Pokemon anime.

WARNINGS: this is probably the darkest fic I've yet written. Noncon, dubcon, seriously unhealthy relationships, plus the par-for-the course stuff; slash, mentions of homophobia, and semi-explicit sex. You have been warned.

I totally own Pokemon. I mean, I have a copy of HeartGold AND SoulSilver! ...wait, that's not enough? Darn.

Convergence

Minnie and a minnie and a ha, ha, ha
Kissed her fellow in a trolley car.
I told Ma, Ma told Pa,
Minnie got a licking and a ha, ha, ha.

-anon, children's rhyme

Welcome to the world of Pokémon...

Except it's not world, singular. It's worlds. Plural. Two worlds, both alike in the beasts that roam them, alike too in some of the people that live in them...but different, as well, and in very important ways. Big ways-politics and religion and history ways-and small ways. Personal ways. The ways of people.

They converge. They diverge. Let me tell you a story, and maybe you'll see what I mean. Close your eyes now; put yourself aside for the moment. I'm telling you about someone(two someones), and for the space of this tale, as is ever the way with protagonists, he is you...

...You're seventeen, just. Living in Goldenrod City. You're at college, and all around you you see sexuality. Not sex, but flirting, dating, people talking about this boyfriend or that crush or that girl with the hot body. Normal things. Seventeen-year-old things.

But you aren't part of those things; you can't be. Because the thing is, you're gay. You get crushes just like any of your classmates, but woe betide you if you breathe a word about them, if you even get caught looking at someone in the wrong way. You can't go up to that person you've been spending science class watching and daydreaming of, and ask them if maybe they'd like to go see a movie with you sometime, because the best you'd get is a punch in the face. You can't flirt, can't even smile, without endangering yourself.

And you're frustrated, and you're lonely, and you're jealous, on the outside looking in, locked out of normal seventeen-year-old life. But you live in Goldenrod City, and so you know there are places, clubs and bars, where you can go without having to hide yourself. So you do.

And you visit those clubs, those bars, and you're seventeen and nervous and you hope no-one will ask you for ID. The music that plays is loud and banging and repetitive-the sort of music you hate-and everyone there seems to be older than you. But this is meant to be where you're safe, right? So you stay with it.

You drink water, or cola, because you're scared that if you try to order alcohol the bartender will realise you're just a kid, and anyway you're too nervous and edgy to want anything that might make your insides churn any more than they already are doing. You try to flirt with people, and you find you really don't know what you're doing, you're aware of the basic concept of flirting but how does that apply to someone like you, in someplace like here? You're scared of making a fool of yourself. You feel like a fish out of water.

And then one night, someone catches your eye, across the bar, and comes to sit by you...

"I haven't seen you in here before." The man is smiling; it's a nice smile, Eusine thinks. He has thick, dark hair, and dark eyes with laugh lines around them; his face is tanned in the real, rough-looking way of someone who spends lots of time outdoors, but his clothes are formal and elegant. A paradox, but a very attractive one. There's a silver fob-watch dangling from his jacket pocket.

"Maybe you just don't remember me," Eusine replies, and winces at the way his voice comes out small and unsure. He takes a sip of his orange juice to cover his nervousness, and wishes he'd had the guts to order something stronger.

The dark man doesn't seem to notice how flustered Eusine is, and makes a show of considering his words, instead. "Hmm...no. No, I think I would have remembered you." He smiles again; his teeth are very white. "It's not every day one sees someone so beautiful."

Eusine wonders if the low lights of the bar are enough to hide the way his face is burning.

"My name is Anton," the man continues. His eyes do not leave Eusine's face, and the boy cannot look away. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"My name's Eu-I mean, Minaki. I'm Minaki," Eusine whispers, remembering just in time to use his alias; then, the words slipping out despite himself, "Nobody's ever called me beautiful before."

"What a pity," says Anton softly, reaching out to cup the side of Eusine's face in one strong hand. Eusine shivers at the contact, but doesn't pull away, and doesn't pull away either when Anton kisses him.

First kiss; slow at first, and gentle, but firm and insistent. Anton's had plenty of practise at this, and plenty of practise coaxing virgins over their nervousness. Eusine gasps when those white, white teeth nip gently at his lower lip, and moans when Anton takes advantage of the unguarded moment to slip a strong, wet tongue into his mouth. It's terrifying, but it feels so good; so good, when Anton's tongue runs over his teeth, he'd wondered how this would feel, dreamed of how this would feel, and none of his imaginings came close to the truth as Anton pulls him close so that he's straddling the older man's lap, arousals rubbing against each other and sending electric jolts up his spine. There's a hand carding through his hair, and another slipping up under his shirt to trace the outlines of his ribs and gently pinch one nipple, touches that feel so good, nobody's touched him except to give him bruises ever since he came out, nobody, and Anton's touching him now and it feels so good, so though Eusine's mind is screaming at him to stop and get away, now, that this is too fucking fast and he's getting in so far over his head, when Anton breaks off the kiss to ask him-

"Do you want to come home with me?"

-there's really only one answer he can give.

Anton's apartment is small and bare, with the shabby, unfinished look of somewhere rented-with-furniture. It doesn't fit with a man who wears designer suits and walks like a king. There are no signs that a person might be living here; no books, no ornaments, nothing personal. Not so much as a newspaper left on the table. This is not anybody's home.

Eusine remembers stories on the news of girls who followed handsome strangers home, and were never seen again. But Anton's not-he can't be-please, no-

(Under the harsh light of bare bulbs, Anton looks much older. Middle-aged. That's how the stories go; teenage girls who don't know what they're doing, and charming middle-aged men.)

Anton kisses him again, and Eusine's stomach twists with lust and sudden nausea. This is wrong-

Tanned, nimble fingers undoing the fly of his jeans, snaking inside and rubbing and stroking-

No!

Eusine shoved Anton off of him, hard, with the strength of pure panic, and-

-bolted for the door, terror turning his insides to ice as Anton roared after him "You little bitch, get back here!", lunging for Eusine with his handsome face contorted into a snarl, but Eusine's fumbling with the door-lock worked just in time, and he was out, running down the dirty concrete stairwell with his heart hammering, out of the apartment block and away, through darkened, electric-lit streets till exhaustion forced him to stop or collapse.

He had no idea where he was. There was an all-night diner open across the street from him; he hurried over to it, panting, needing desperately to be somewhere there were lights and people. The smell of food inside made him feel sick. He sat in a corner on his own, taking deep breaths and trying not to sob, expecting at any minute to see Anton through the plate-glass window, looming out of the darkness.

But Anton did not appear, and after long, hellish minutes of waiting and trying to get his composure back, Eusine managed to head over to the diner's payphone and call a taxi to take him home.

By the time the taxi turned into his own street, Eusine's panic had given way to numbness. He paid the driver with a hundred-credit note and didn't bother asking for change; he walked, or sleepwalked, up to his front door, hunted in his pocket for his key and let himself in. His mother and father were already in bed. He wondered absently whether it would have been better or worse to find them sitting up waiting for him, accusing.

The nausea had receded with the panic. Perhaps a warm drink would make him feel better. He poured himself a mug of milk, put it in the microwave to heat up, hunted in the cupboards till he found the anijsblokjes his mom bought at the Sinnoh grocery store downtown, moving mechanically around the kitchen, blotting out everything else. (Much later, looking back, he would realise; he'd been in shock.)

The microwave went ding. He retrieved his drink and stirred two anijsblokjes into it, went through into the living room to sit down. Marta the Growlithe, ancient, greying, deaf and half-blind, was asleep on the rug there. He bent to stroke her, and was surprised when she stirred under his hand, blinking blearily, then climbed effortfully up onto the sofa with him. Eusine balanced his drink carefully on the arm of the sofa and ruffled her ears. "You should be sleeping, girl," he told her softly.

Marta whined and nuzzled him, huffing dog-breath in his face, then jammed her cold nose into his ear, whimpering softly.

Eusine put his arms around the family Pokémon, buried his face in her fur, and began to weep.

-tried to bolt, but Anton caught him by the arm, and dealt him a blow that made his ears ring. "None of that," the other man said calmly, then hit him again while he was still reeling, not a punch this time but a slap round the face. Eusine's head spun, and the next thing he knew, Anton was pinning him against the threadbare couch, breathing into his face. "None of that," he repeated, then added, "Don't be such an ungrateful little bitch, such a little tease, Minaki. You want this, you know you want it. You were begging me for it a moment ago."

"I, I," Eusine stuttered, trying to squirm out from under Anton, but though he was the taller one Anton was stronger and heavier and older, and he couldn't get free no matter how he tried. "I'm seventeen!" I'm only seventeen, he meant, I'm not legal yet, I'm just a kid, I thought I was ready for this but I'm not, please please please leave me alone...

"Seventeen," repeated Anton, as if mulling it over; then he smiled, that same smile that had charmed Eusine in the bar. "I thought you were underage. And you are a virgin, too, aren't you?" His eyes were pleased and indulgent and possessive and nothing remotely like human, as he dipped his head to lick and suck the pale skin of Eusine's throat. "Seventeen and a virgin," he whispered. "And so very beautiful."

Eusine whimpered as lips ghosted across his adam's-apple, then sobbed, hating himself. "Please don't kill me," he begged. I'm only seventeen. I don't want to die yet.

Anton actually laughed at that. "Oh, Minaki. I'm not going to kill you; why would I do that? I'm going to teach you. I'm going to make you feel good. I won't even hurt you..." Another laugh, then, dark and rich. "Or not much. Not if you're good."

He ground his hips against the teenager's, and Eusine cried out-couldn't help it, a ragged-edged sound, half wail, half moan...and that, perhaps, was when he gave in, and gave up.

He was never sure, later. Perhaps it had been then. Perhaps later. Anton kept touching him; not harshly, not leaving bruises or drawing blood, but with firm and horrible gentleness. Kept kissing him everywhere, telling him how beautiful he was, how he was going to like this so much, if he'd just relax and do as he was told...

Perhaps it was when Anton led him, too sick inside to resist, into the apartment's one tiny bedroom, pushed him down to the bed and began to strip him; slowly, as if savouring the task.

Perhaps it was when fingers entered him, one, two, three, and hit something inside there that made him throw back his head and shriek-made his hands fist in grimy sheets as a second later Anton did it again, and again-

Perhaps it was when he came, keening desperately deep in his throat, tears wet on his face, loving it and hating it in equal measure, disgusted at himself and shaken to the core.

It wasn't really important, which exact moment it was when it happened. What was important was that it had happened.

That Eusine had been broken.