EDIT: OH GOD I didn't realize I hadn't saved this the last time I wrote and whoops, posted the draft. I AM SO SORRY. Update coming soon.

I promised everyone and no one a fic because the 13th was apparently Contestshipping Day and the barest concept of this popped in my head as I was driving our puppy home from the vet and I don't understand anything? Except how to play Sapphire, by god I have restarted that game at least twenty times I better know how to play it.

I went ahead and let it grow the plot it wanted (fostered by the hilariously long headcanon I wrote on my Tumblr about Drew) since it's also a bit of a consolation prize on the off chance anyone was looking forward to my collab with SuicidalToeSocks. It is still a thing that's going to happen, but not for a while. We've both been super busy. Whoops.

-8-

"Oh my gosh, this is so weird."

Drew waved a hand in her general direction. "Just pick a starter all ready."

"Have you picked yet?"

"I turned on the game ten minutes ago, I'm halfway to, uh, you by now. I picked Torchic."

May snuggled deeper into the battered couch. "Then I pick Mudkip!"

The boy across from her snickered as he kicked a pillow in her direction. "We both know you picked Torchic too, don't even bother lying."

"Oh, shut up." She didn't even try to kick the pillow back - it had landed far short of her, anyway, and she actually had picked Torchic. Besides, Drew's dorm couch was surprisingly comfortable.

Actually, a lot of things about the green haired boy were surprising, if she really thought about it. She'd made so many misconceptions about him back when she had first started coordinating. Back then, he was just a rival (and on many occasions a jerk) but now, her first semester at Lilycove University, he was one of her closer friends. They'd met in the hallway a few weeks in and she'd badgered him for his number and his dorm and his major because he seemed to know everything about her, like always.

Which was why, when he invited her over to his dorm to play old Pokémon video games, she hadn't thought twice about accepting. She hadn't seen him for a while, anyway; their careers had branched off in different areas and they'd drifted apart over the years.

It was nice to be around him again. At least to a degree.

"So, you mentioned something about special rules?" she queried as she headed off into the grass north of 'her' hometown. It was so surreal! Playing with a sprite modeled after her ten-year-old self! And Brendan was there too. So weird.

Drew coughed. "Oh, that's a thing I more do with the guys."

"You have guy friends?"

"Okay, so my roommate does it with his guy friends, details." He made another flippant gesture, somewhere around his hairline. She glanced up, disappointed if she'd missed one of his old classic 'hair flicks.'

"Well? What do they do?"

He chuckled, somewhat uncomfortably. "He tells me they play Strip Battles."

She couldn't help it - she giggled as she ordered her Torchic to Scratch the Poochyena. "Whaaaat?'

Drew laid the handheld game player beside his bean bag chair and looked unexpectedly embarrassed. "Okay, so like, the rules are that every time you lose a Pokémon battle, whether it's a trainer battle or a wild Pokemon, you have to take off an item of clothing."

"How do you know that no one else is lying? Is it, like, the honor system?"

"No, it's just harder to lie when you're completely smashed." Drew resumed his playing. "One of the boys once got naked in twenty minutes apparently, he kept using Splash. But, anyway, I know that'd be really awkward since I'm a guy and you're a girl," he muttered something under his breath quickly, "so don't worry about it, I can think of another penalty to make things more interesting."

"Yeah," she laughed nervously, "that'd be really weird..."

-8-

"How many Gyms have you defeated?"

Drew didn't protest when she bumped shoulders with him in the hallway on their way out of class. "I'm up to Winona. She shouldn't be too hard, my Mawile just learned Baton Pass so I should be able to sweep most of her team with him and my Flygon."

"Mawile?"

He flipped to the Pokemon screen and selected a black-and-tan creature with a set of massive jaws in the back of its head. May pushed into him harder.

"I knew I should have gone with Ruby instead of Sapphire. They're so cute!"

"If you wanna meet up when I'm done with class, I can trade you one. I'll have to beat her and then Fly back to Dewford to catch another one but it's not a big deal." He shrugged. "It'd be nice if you could trade me back a Sableye but aren't you still stuck on the first gym?"

"Hush," and she stuck out her tongue at him. "I'm actually training to take on-"

Wordlessly, he sidestepped and tugged her along with him; a glance to her right revealed she'd almost walked into a wall.

"Oops."

"Still as clueless as ever," he chided her, but not without a grin. "So, you free tonight around 5?"

"Sure! It's a date, then." Her step almost faltered; he gave her a curious look. She raised one hand disarmingly. "No hetero or anything like that."

Drew sighed and rolled his eyes. "You know that's not going to be a thing no matter how many times you say it."

She tried pushing him into the wall as they walked, but he was surprisingly steady on his feet.

"Says you! Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

"Just keep telling yourself that."

Outside the weather was quickly growing colder; Lilycove may have been a beachside town, but it was on the northern end of Hoenn region, and could get rather nippy supposedly. So far, though, it had stayed warm. It was currently clouding over, though, and if she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could almost taste rain on the breeze.

"Tonight, it will rain," she declared. Drew made a noise that might have been sarcastic, but he was too wrapped up in his game to formulate an actual reply. May glared at him. "Rude!"

"What? I watched the weather this morning - scattered showers blowing in this evening. What do you want, a ribbon?"

"You're mean." She sulked. "I never watch TV anymore. I'm too busy studying."

"Studying," he repeated, then looked up at the grey and blue patched sky. "Good for you."

He looked back down again, but as she stolwatched him from the corner of her eye as they parted ways, his smile lingered the rest his whole way home.

-8-

Her futon wasn't quite as soft and plush as his, but it had the benefit of not being covered with school books and clothes and other assorted crap; her roommate, a teal-haired girl named Lacey from Unova, was thankfully neat and even more thankfully seldom in the room.

The rain pattered against the glass of her partially opened window, and the cool clean scent make her want to nestle into his shoulder as he played his game. After a few more minutes, she saved her game and powered it down, then succumbed to her desires and flopped over.

He tensed for a moment - he had never been a touch-y, feel-y kind of person - but seemed to resign himself to their new positions and relaxed.

"No wonder you suck at this, you never actually play it." He made a scolding noise with his tongue, but shifted against the futon so she could snuggle closer.

"I have a social life, unlike some people."

"Yeah, and I have fantastic grades and am on the doorsteps of the virtual Elite Four, unlike some people."

She buried her nose in the tan-colored hood of his sweatshirt. "Such a nerd."

"Thank you."

Silence filled the room for a moment, the only sounds being the occasional muffled tap as Drew pressed various buttons and the afore-mentioned rain.

"Hey, Drew? Do you ever think about the old days?"

He chuckled. "What do you think I'm doing right now?"

"But playing a video game based on the stereotypical Trainer experience is nothing like what it was like to actually be on a journey with Pokemon! I mean, look at this thing, they still have Roxanne in a miniskirt."

"And you're actually competent at battling. Miraculous."

She growled and pushed away from him so she was lying on her side. It was much less comfortable, and he gave her a suspicious look when she laid her legs in his lap, but again he neglected to protest.

"It's still kinda fun," she amended, "I mean, their version of contests suck compared to the real thing, but I can literally bike across the whole region in less than ten minutes."

Drew's attention stayed focused on the small screen even as he conversed. "No Harley either."

"Harley gave you trouble?"

"Aside from dressing up like you and otherwise being Harley, no. But he gave you trouble."

"Why would that bother you?"

Drew stopped playing and stared at her abruptly. "Can we not go into this today?"

"Go into what?" she asked, baffled, as she sat up and reclaimed her legs.

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "Don't play oblivious with me."

"Stop avoiding the question."

"You're serious, then?"

She snatched a pillow and swatted it at him. "Of course I am!"

May had hoped that her aggression might have taken some of the sudden seriousness off of his face, but it hadn't. He sighed like he was world weary and tormented, but this was Drew; impervious to all jabs and jibes, the armored perfect prince from her childhood. Nothing really ever bothered him.

"I had the worst crush on you when we were Coordinators, May," he said softly. She colored; his gentleness suddenly dropped away and he shrugged. "Don't look at me like that, if you really didn't notice it's because you weren't interested. It's not a big deal."

"I..."

She wanted to say she had no idea, but a quick reflection over some of their closer moments - his roses, his protectiveness, his teasing - made her want to sink into the furniture and disappear.

Everything made so much sense now.

"Stop." It was his turn to hit her with a pillow. "I didn't want to say anything because I knew you'd get all guilty and stuff. It's fine. Just drop it."

Drew refocused his attention on playing, but she couldn't dismiss it so easily. She felt guilty, and disappointed maybe? He was right, though; she'd never noticed it. Like she'd never noticed a lot of things.

Like how honestly pretty his eyes were, wow.

May stopped that train of thought as fast as she could, snatched up her game and resumed playing with fierce determination.