Ch. V
Keep The Light On

His bed is wide enough for two, but the issue is not lack of space and is in fact that – the other person is Flannery. His hand lingers on the handle of his bedroom's door as he gapes at her.

"I just – it's kind of weird sleeping in your room all by myself," Flannery says easily, looking at him with innocent eyes. He almost can't believe this is the same girl who got him off just an hour ago. She's sleepy and casual, so unlike the girl writhing on his counter. He doesn't know what he likes more – if her domestic persona, fueling his fantasies-cum-fears of settling down, or the bold girl who'll half-admit she would like to fuck him. He can't pick.

Steven wants to tell her that he'd be far more comfortable with steering clear of the deadly mix that is Flannery and beds, but it's puppy eyes all over again—so he tells her, as fast as he can, that he just needs to check up on something Devon-related and he'll be right back. He flees to the living room, turns on his laptop and stares at it, somehow hoping that his desktop will answer all his desperate questions.

How does a relationship work? He's inadequately inadept at this. Ask him to get her off under fifteen minutes, well that's fine, he's stellar at that, but ask him to work out what they are and he's taking cover behind his work. This is Hoenn's champion – a man who's afraid of sleeping (literally!) with the girl he loves.

In the end, he waits an hour and a half before venturing inside his bedroom. The lights on her side are on, but no one's home; Flannery's curled up beneath his covers, her hair spread out like a fan. Steven leans against the door jamb, half-way to closing it. His mouth feels dry at the thought that she's in his bed, asleep. It's not even about sex—it's that she looks so small. Her knees brought up, one of her hands beneath her pillow, the other at her front – he wants to lie down beside her and wrap his arms around her, bring her closer.

He sits on the chair on the corner of the room, in front of his closet door, in front of the mirror screwed into it, and he shrugs out of his jacket. It falls to the floor but he has three of the same, so he doesn't even care that it'll get rumpled, because he can't pull his eyes away. Is this it? The finish line? Watching her sleep inside his bed, one of the most symbolic steps in a relationship? He certainly feels possessive enough, to complement the imagery (and a little resentful that she's not wearing one of his shirts, or something silly like that). But he doesn't know where to go from here. Flannery, were she awake, would inevitably find a way to get him into bed with her (not like that), using her innocent wiles. Using the way she simplifies everything so well he's almost appalled at the thought that he had difficulty with something like the cleaning lady incident. Using her eyes to get him to stay, even when he wants nothing more than to leave. Using her hands to stubbornly sit him down on the matress until they were both asleep.

Steven has no doubts she'd have him fall asleep next to her. The issue lies within him. He sits back, pops open the third and fourth buttons of his shirt (the first two had been opened when he'd gotten home with her), and tries to make a strategy. If he sleeps on the couch, he risks making her worry about herself, because who declines an invitation like that from the nation's beauty? So that's out of the picture. But the alternative is to get in bed with her and that is just … so awkward. What if he wakes her up? He's never really shared a bed before; at least, not so platonically. What is she expecting? Does she want him to touch her, does she want him not to?

He lets his head fall back, and the sheets rustle. Flannery rolls over, turns toward him, and opens her eyes. She's bleary-eyed still, her eyes very half-lidded. For a second, she looks a little confused, but then she recognizes her surroundings, and sits up. The covers fall to her waist, and Steven appreciates her too-large shirt, mentally replacing it with one of his.

"Hey," she says, and her voice is pitched deep with sleep.

"Hey," he replies, and, even though he's anything but sleepy, his voice is deeper than usual.

"Aren't you coming to bed?"

Wow. Okay. See—this is what he means when he says that despite his excellence at sex, he's absolute crap at relationships. All his life he thought that he could get by with flings and one-night things, but here he is, willing to throw himself at her feet, willing to to do whatever she asks, just because she's Flannery. And Flannery is asking him if he isn't coming to bed.

"You don't have to sleep with me if you don't want to," she says, after a moment of quietude.

"I never said that," he replies, a little too quickly, and feels the back of his neck heat. Smooth, he thinks. Real smooth.

She brings her knees to her chest and leans on them, crossing her arms. "It's just that …" She sighs, small and quiet. "It's your bed."

"I was the one who insisted."

"Yes, I know, but," she sinks her reddening face into the space between her knees and chest, "why sleep on the couch when you can sleep here?"

He doesn't know. Because they're so new to each other. She's still blooming, and it shows – her curiosity overflows, be it regarding the world or regarding sex. But he's not going to be able to count on it forever, really, and she's bound to get tired if she continues being the only one pulling him closer. So far, all he's done is treat her with physical things, while she's gotten him to talk about himself (the largest of his taboos, in Steven's opinion), gotten him to open his eyes wide to the meaning of dating, made him think about buying a home and dropping to one knee—and kids? At least three. But she's scary. To Flannery – who he supposes hasn't had many boyfriends in the past, if her self-esteem is that low, if her curiosity is that high – this is acceptable. Somehow. He doesn't get it.

The normal transition of things: talking, kissing, touching (ahem). Their transition of things: blowjob, kissing, awkwardly discussing their flaws. Why is this girl even bothering to stay with him?

Flannery sinks her face further, and Steven belatedly realizes he hasn't answered her.

"I've never—" he sighs, "slept with anyone before." She brings her head back up, eyes and mouth wide, and he backtracks. "I mean - I mean literally." He picks at the end of his shirt, just to avoid her gaze. It's a move worthy of a grade school student, but he doesn't care. "I don't know how it was with you, but I'm not the one for romance. I'm sure you can tell."

He sighs. They're doing this again; he's struggling to talk about himself, she's listening in silence, and they're both being awkward and self-conscious. What if he kissed her right now? What if he made her come right now? Would that fix everything? He doubts it. In fact, he's half aware that Flannery probably wouldn't appreciate being touched just to clear the air of something. And neither would he.

"You know, I've never really been in a relationship before," she says, and looks away when he turns to stare at her. "A real one, at least," she adds, shrugging her shoulders just so. "I've been training hard all my life to take over the gym. That doesn't leave too much time for boys." She smiles, rueful. "Besides, there aren't many boys in Lavaridge. And no one was ever really interested."

How could they not? He has a mental picture of Moore scaring teenager boys away from his granddaughter, and can't help but to give a curt laugh.

"What?" she asks, softly, pulling at her hair.

"I think those boys were fools."

Ah. Flannery presses her lips together, doing her very best not to smile.

"You think that?"

"I'm no stranger to intimidation," he replies, coating his voice in a sagely tone, "and I know for a fact that you are very intimidating."

"I am not intimidating!" She sounds amused. "I was the only one without a boyfriend throughout eight grade!"

Idiots. The whole lot of them. He would have held on and not let go, he thinks, but then remembers shrugging away his affections for her, before, and swallows in dry. He's a fool, too. He's about to comment on it when he picks up on the limit she unconsciously set.

"So in ninth grade…"

Flannery looks away. "There was a boy." He sets his chin on his hand, attentive. He wants to know about it, somewhat; there's a pull at the back of his head that complains about competition and how she's been with others before, but he smothers his jealousy and carries on. She takes his position as interest and goes on, slow. "It wasn't like – it wasn't very special. We kissed a few times," he feels a mild flick of annoyance, "but he would've dated anyone, I'm sure." She sighs. "We only dated for a month and a half. It wasn't a big deal – Grandpa didn't like him because he cut class and was a loudmouth and he had a funny laugh. But he wanted to be a fire-type trainer."

She's playing with her hair and Steven knows she isn't even doing it on purpose. He wants to pull her hand away and kiss it, or maybe just hold it, intertwine her fingers with his. He also wants to punch the ninth-grader who kissed her.

"When we graduated from grade school he moved to Lilycove, so—that was that. I went to Mauville for high school, trained on my free time, and when I graduated Grandpa gave me the gym." She leans back against the header of the bed. Her hair falls back, slips over her shoulder. "And then we met," she adds in a whisper, cheeks reddening, and Steven realizes he's smiling, too, and he feels his cheeks scald.

"And then we met," he repeats, but despite everything the distance between the bed and the chair he's sitting on is still far too big.

Flannery must read his mind, because her eyes dart at the floor and then at him, and suddenly she's huffing and throwing the covers to the end of the bed. He is a little disappointed (although not surprised) to see her wearing a pair of loose shorts, reaching just above the knee. She takes wide, defiant steps toward him, and then she grabs his hand and pulls on it with surprising ferocity. A half-forgotten thought regarding straddling and kitchen chairs comes to mind, but then he hits the bed and falls against the mattress. His head misses the pillow but so does hers; they're between the two.

"There," she says, lying on her side, to his right. She's losing her battle against sleep. "Was that so hard?"

Steven's throat is dry. He shakes his head, smirking, and pushes her hair behind her ear. Flannery smiles at him, eyes closed, and brings her knees up just slightly, until they touch his own.

A few minutes later, her breathing evens out. Steven sits up as carefully as he can, pretending not to have been staring at her for the last ten minutes, and brings the covers up. She curls tighter when he lies down again, hands reaching for his shirt, and Steven decides that it is common courtesy to return the lovely (if unconscious) gesture; his left hand very carefully sets on the curve of her hip and stays there.

He falls asleep while wondering how to turn off the light without getting up.

When he wakes up, she is still asleep. He is momentarily confused, because it's been ages since he's dreamt about waking up with her, and then it clicks and he smiles unabashedly just because. Judging from the outside, it's still early morning; the gray sky seeps into the room and fights with the yellow light from the night-stand. He's halfway into turning to see the time when she moans sleepily, frustrated at being bothered in her sleep. Her head shies away from the light and into his chest, and her arms go around his stomach and pull him into her. This adorable moment, Steven can handle.

What he can't handle is her right leg curving over his left and slipping behind it, hooking his between hers. She's warm and she smells like apples (as usual) and when she breathes he feels it slipping down the unbuttoned part of his shirt. He hurriedly pulls his hand out of her hip when she brings her foot into dangerous territory, and it's the worst time in the world to find out that Flannery is quite flexible, because she's not even trying.

He focuses on the night-stand behind her, and, when that doesn't work, he tries figuring out what's the bill for electricity these days. That doesn't work, either. His hand is on her foot and it's as smooth as her stomach. At least she's not ticklish; he wouldn't have an explanation to their position if she were to wake up. And yet, he kind of wants her to. Maybe because it wouldn't be so creepy to want to touch her, maybe because kissing someone awake can have very different results depending on who's being kissed. Steven lets his fingers run up her leg now that she's stopped moving it between his. He can feel her calf and her knee and he allows himself the forbidden pleasure of skimming the underside of her shorts with the pads of his fingers. Flannery sighs, fluttery and windy and Steven wants to kiss her.

He doesn't—not asking for permission (although he's fairly sure she'd let him) would be too eerie and he has standards, so. So.

His internal clock refuses to let him sleep, and his metabolism huffs disapprovingly, telling him that it's time for breakfast and that she'll sleep for another four hours if he lets her. Steven returns his hand to his side and turns his head as softly as he can, straining to read the red numbers on his digital clock. It's ten in the morning; he's surprised he's slept so late. Turning again, he looks into his chest, toward her, and he sighs.

He doesn't want to go, but he doesn't want to stay – not if it involves her waking up to his morning wood. Steven closes his eyes resolutely and sets her foot gently down, but just when he starts to get away, he hears her. It's so quiet, so soft, under her breath, but at the same time it is surprised and breathy and his hand tightens around her ankle.

"Steven," Flannery whispers, and groans, her foot flexing in his hold, tugging his hand closer to the string of her pajama shorts.

Well, fuck.

All thoughts of breakfast are immediately forgotten.