Notes: One of my shorter pieces, but one of my favorites all the same. Inspired by a pretty awesome fic in which two unlikely friends wait for the guy they care for to return home; I thought this concept would be fun when applied to

Characters / Pairings: Leaf + Green

Universe: Games. Post-R/B/Y, FR/LG.

Warnings: language, sexual innuendo.

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

waiting

The first thing Leaf had done after arriving in Kanto was to buy a bag of her favorite lollipops.

That particular brand was harder to find than a feebas those days; she had heard something a while ago about the company that made them going out of business, but Leaf knew a place where the manager ignored expiration dates completely. He could always be counted upon to have stockpiles of the stuff whenever she made her way back home, and she thanked the heavens that there were still shopkeepers brazen enough to disregard the MAFF's regulations so vehemently.

Bag in hand, she sat at her usual spot in the outskirts of Viridian City. She reached into the bag with barely concealed excitement and unwrapped one of the lollipops. Plopping the candy into her mouth, she eased herself into familiar task of squinting her eyes and looking toward the horizon, waiting.

It was already late autumn, and the trees had just finished shedding their leaves so that every inch of the ground was coated in oranges and yellows. They crinkled under her legs whenever she made even the slightest of movements, so she made an effort to stay still.

Eventually, Green arrived. He was trying to walk all slow and leisure-like, his hands shoved deep in his tight jeans pockets.

Leaf smirked at the sight; Green had always swaggered like an anxious combusken when he was nervous.

They said hello to each other with small gestures of acknowledgement, accustomed to the routine already.

Green lowered himself oh-so-carefully onto the grass so as not to ruin his expensive clothes, and Leaf rolled her eyes at the monumental stick lodged up his ass. Normally, she would make it a point to mock him for it. She never could get over how he had taken those speech lessons to hide his telltale country twang, or how he made it a habit to slap on designer clothes to hide his humble origins as a Pallet Town kid. Green cared far too much about what other people thought; he always had. The only cure to such a disorder, as far as she knew, was to mock its victims continuously so that they built up some fortitude to negativity. (Leaf had only been somewhat successful in that regard.)

On a day like that one, however, she tried to make it a point to be civil to him.

But the way he was fidgeting made the leaves crinkle annoyingly far too often, and she found that she couldn't really help herself.

"You're obsessing about it again," she chided, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth to speak. "You're thinking way too much. Just relax."

And really, she was expecting the scoff and haughty eye roll at her presumptuousness.

"You're assuming that I care enough to actually… 'obsess,'" Green said, making air-quotes with his fingers.

"I dunno, Green… you are the one that climbs the mountain every week to take him supplies the supplies he needs."

His skin stained itself pink, and Leaf smirked to herself, tongue running over the hard shell and reveling in the excess sugar.

"He'd freeze andstarve to death if I didn't. Besides, who else would?" Green shot back.

Leaf was feeling far too generous to call him on that pathetic attempt at a red herring, so she settled for a wry quirk of the lips instead.

There was silence for a while, until the anxiety, contagious as it was, infected Leaf, breaking her carefully prepared front of calmness. Her fingers began twisting her hair in that vapid, bubblegum-chewing Goldenrod City blonde sort of way, and she thought that she might get sick with the lengths that he obliviously pushed her to.

"Will Red be here soon?" she asked. Her hair-twisting was beginning to assume a frantic, impatient quality to it.

Green sighed. "How the hell should I know?" He ran a hand through his hair tiredly. His eyes, she noticed, were purple-bagged and weary. "I should be at the gym…"

Leaf pulled her lollipop out of her mouth with a wet pop and shoved it into Green's face. "Here, take a lick. You need it more than I do."

He looked repulsed and made to pull back with a complaint about her lack of manners. At the sight of the insistent, determined look she was giving him, however, he gave in. He gave the lollipop a halfhearted lick with a wince.

"How long has this been expired?" Green asked tremulously.

Leaf shrugged carelessly. "Last year," she admitted.

Green threw a coughing fit, choking on his own saliva. She sighed in exasperation; he was such a drama queen.

He recovered after a moment that was too drawn out to be anything but theatrical, leaving silence to fall between them again. Just as a welcome sense of calm was beginning to settle over her, Green decided to break the silence again.

"So…you still have that thing for Red, then?"

"It's not a thing," she reminded him irritably. No matter how many times she answered that question for him, he never seemed to get it. "I'd ask you," she deflected, "but I already know the answer to that question. Besides, you'd just lie to me about it."

Green ignored her. "It's hopeless, you know. He's probably asexual or something. Chances are he never even discovered the existence of hormones."

"Shut up, Green."

Green clucked his tongue, but acquiesced anyway. After giving the lollipop a furtive sidelong glance, he snatched it out of Leaf's hand and plopped it into his own mouth, faux-disgust gone all of a sudden.

She raised a sardonic eyebrow at him, but he just rolled his shoulders. "What? I like the red ones."

"Yeah, so do I."

Leaf caught sight of it first - a speck coming from the west, shadowed by the setting sun and announced by the faint sound of the flapping of powerful wings. She got to her feet as quickly as she could, dusting her short skirt off and finger-combing the locks of chestnut hair that poked out from beneath her hat. Beside her, Green did the same. He was trying to be subtle about it, but failed (again).

Ignoring her friends primping, she tried practicing what she was going to say in her mind, but found the words sounded ridiculously stupid and utterly trite. Giving a sigh of frustration as the speck grew ever larger, she considered improvising.

She bit her lip in thought. "Maybe I should just… you know, seduce him. Nothing else seems to work…"

Green snorted humorlessly. "Great idea. Go ahead and book the motel room for five or ten minutes. I'll be waiting at the diner."

Leaf chuckled despite herself, tearing her eyes away from the speck (which was beginning to assume a form that actually resembled Charizard now, albeit vaguely) to meet Green's forest-colored ones.

"Aw, Green. You know that I wouldn't leave you out. We could always go back to your apartment and have a threesome, if you're up for it."

He flushed a deep crimson. "Unlike you, I actually have some scruples."

"You know," she added, ignoring him, "if you weren't so gay, I'd definitely sleep with you."

Green crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "I'm not," he retorted. "I just have standards."

She cuffed him lightly, unable to let that one slide. "Ass," she bit back. Then, after a moment, she leaned in close and rested her head on his shoulder. A few years ago, her childhood friend would have reacted unfavorably to the gesture of tenderness. Instead, he accepted it silently. "You know that I love you anyway. No matter what."

"Whatever," he grumbled. Then, quietly, "Me too."

It was barely a mumble, but it was there, floating in the crisp autumn air between them. For the two of them, it was enough.

As the boy they were waiting for became visible on the dragon's back, Leaf snatched the lollipop back from between Green's lips and bit down hard with her molars, breaking the cherry candy cleanly in half.

A/N: I can just imagine Leaf and Green waiting for Red to come down from Mt. Silver, harboring feelings for him that he doesn't understand and prefers to ignore. It's funny, if not a bit sad... weird trio dynamic in this one.

As always, thanks go out to the readers! I appreciate the time you took to read this! Reviews are always appreciated!

Hope you enjoyed it!

*MAFF = Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food (the Japanese equivalent to the United States' FDA)

EDIT: Overhauled the piece and made major edits.