Chapter Text
Raihan could not remember the last time he had set foot outside of Galar, having spent the last decade fixated on nothing but pokemon battles, his mind always oriented on the next match and the next tournament. Being on the Pokestar train towards Lumiose City reminded Raihan of his first adventure, the time that he set out to take on the Pokemon Challenge, that exhilarating sense of hurtling oneself into the unknown.
Across from him, Piers looked too exhausted to be up on such an early morning train ride, but occasionally shot him shy smiles that Raihan would eagerly returned a hundredfold.
“Unfortunately, I’d need to be at the concert venue shortly after we check in to the hotel, and the concert is in the evening so I won’t be done till late,” Piers said apologetically as Raihan wondered about their itinerary.
“Well, what do you recommend?”
"Haven’t done much, to be honest,” Piers considered it in thought, “I suppose that means we’ve got options tomorrow.”
Raihan’s insides trembled in excitement. It almost sounded like a date.
Two and a half hours later, they arrived in Lumiose City, Piers leading the way towards a Lumi Cab, a bright blue car that would take them to their hotel. Raihan stared out the passing streets the whole time, watching the blur of shops with names he couldn’t pronounce and and the intricate detailing of buildings done up in a distinct style. When the cab pulled up in front of a grand looking building decked out in black and gold, Raihan whistled.
“Damn Piers,” he mumbled as they got out of the car, “are you secretly minted?”
Piers snorted, “Hah! No. The event company pays for it.”
They made their way up the long staircase leading into the hotel, and Piers checked them in at the reception while Raihan tried not to gawk at his surroundings. The resplendent interiors reminded him of The Rose of The Roserades in Wyndon, with its high ceilings, curving foyer and chandelier, and Raihan briefly wondered if Piers would be more likely to indulge in the niceties of a luxury hotel if it wasn’t on Rose’s dime.
Piers certainly wasn’t wearing the frown that he normally wore in Wyndon, and it was hard to say whether that was a result of not having a series of tournament matches lined up or if it was just the mood of not being in Galar that relaxed the tension that Piers almost always seemed to carry.
“Being overseas is a good look on you,” Raihan told Piers as they entered the lift. Deino chirped in assent at his comment, and Piers smiled wryly.
“Maybe we should try it more often then,” Piers replied, a dusting of pink on his cheek, and Raihan hoped in the depth of his hearts that Piers was actually flirting with him, and that it wasn’t just his imagination.
The hotel room that they had was nicely spacious, not unlike a large studio apartment with a separate sitting space for lounging, and a sizable bedroom tucked behind it. The tall windows granted them with a fantastic of the boulevard below, and in the distance, the Prism Tower stood proudly against the clear sky.
If Piers took issue with the lone, king-sized bed in the bedroom, he didn’t say anything, so Raihan remained quiet. Apart from that time that Raihan had boldly hedged his bets and requested for Piers to cuddle with him, they hadn’t shared a bed since, which Raihan considered a massive shame.
Maybe this would change that?
Piers coughed, pulling Raihan out of his musings, face pink for some reason.
“So,” Piers said slowly, “concert’s at eight.”
“Right,” Raihan said, Deino wriggling around against his chest, unwilling to stay put from restlessness. Raihan felt the same himself, “you haven’t told me where it was.”
“You’re coming?” Piers asked, a distinct note of hopefulness in his voice.
“Of course.” Raihan asserted, one hand on scratching absentmindedly at Deino’s head to calm him down, “came all the way to Kalos with you, didn’t I?”
“If you’re gonna put it like that,” Piers smiled ruefully and handed him a ticket.
Raihan held it just out of reach of Deino’s eager mouth and studied it. On it, the words ‘PIERS AND THE MAXIMIZERS’ gleamed boldly, and Raihan beamed as he fingered the thick cardstock.
“I’ll be there,” Raihan promised, “Can’t say I know all the words, but I’ll try not to embarrass you.”
Piers laughed in response, “Lunch first, before I leave?”
“Sounds fantastic.”
Despite Piers’ remark that he wasn’t familiar with the tourist attractions of Lumiose City, he did know where to go for food. They end up with hot gallettes in their hands and they hung around the extensive riverfront to people watch, occasionally feeding chunks of their food to Deino. Raihan took delight in the way their shoulders bumped against each other with every step, neither one of them quite willing to move away
It’s one of the best meals Raihan has ever had.
They part ways eventually, the reluctance incomprehensible even when they were clearly going to meet up again later. Raihan waved at Piers, watching his parting figure until he was no longer in sight, and then sighed wistfully, already missing the other.
Right. Raihan had a whole city to explore. No need to get too hung up yet.
He wandered along the large boulevards along Lumiose City giddily, in part out of his excitement of what’s to come, but also mostly in awe of the place. It was an expansive city, not unlike Wyndon, Hammerlocke or even Motostoke, with its numerous alleyways and side streets that all beckoned at him with the promise of something interesting around the corner. Still, the architecture and atmosphere were so different from anything that he was familiar with, that childish sense of adventuring well and alive in him. The long avenues were lined with large trees that cast leafy shadows on the cobblestone streets, the voices of a foreign tongue spoken by well-dressed strangers filling his ears.
As Raihan mulled over his options for the day, a passing group of punks with brightly coloured hair gave him an idea.
He hoped Nessa was available for a call now.
----------
Even in the dressing room, Piers could hear the roar of the crowd as the opening band played, and he tempered his breaths, going through the motions of meditations to relax. Around him, Julia, the make-up artist, fluttered around anxiously, and it only ate away at the shaky foundation of confidence he had built up.
“It’s fine,” Piers ground out as she attempted to brush powder on his face for the third time, pulling away slightly, “it’s fine, it’s really fine.”
Julia sighed, displeasure cutting through her thick Kalosian accent, “Piers, darling, the bright lights will wash you out, and you are so pale already.”
“It’s fine,” Piers repeated, somewhat despairing. From experience, the hot stage lights and sweat was bound to smudge it all up anyway, and it wasn’t like he was famous for his looks.
“As you wish,” Julia harrumphed, and then bounded off, leaving him alone in the room.
Piers shifted in his seat, wondering if his nervousness was a side effect of working with a major events company for the first time, or the idea that someone he personally knew might be here to watch it. This was new for him - he had always kept his two careers separate, and having it intersect like this left him anxious. Never extending an invitation to anyone he knew from work at the Pokemon League was a deliberate action on his part.
At the end of the day, performing for a concert was nothing like singing during a battle, and he wasn’t sure what would have been worse; for Raihan to flake or for Raihan to show up but find his music awful.
That was the problem. Music was such an intimate thing, and it was much easier to bare his soul out to faceless crowds of strangers that he would likely not recognise again than it was to reveal it all to someone he would have to see time and time again. Would Raihan look at him with pity or would his face scrunch up in a cringe if he disliked the performance? He’d seen the way Raihan wince in the viewing box when watching a poor candidate make a bad showing at the gym tryouts - would Raihan give him the same looks after today? Asking Raihan to attend was a terrible idea. Why had he decided to contravene his habits of years?
Piers exhaled sharply, and drained the glass of water in front of him in one go, desperately trying to shake off all these insecurities.
This was just another performance that he’s rehearsed several times now, entirely committed to even muscle memory. Whoever would or wouldn’t be in the audience stands today shouldn’t matter, and with music now being his sole career, he had to put in extra effort to make a good showing.
There were a few sharp raps on his dressing room door, and one of the set assistants ducked her head in, informing him that it was time for him to get ready. Piers took another deep breath and reminded his reflection in the mirror that he was a professional, and slipped outside. The opening band entered their last song on their set list, and he nodded his head to greet the band members of The Maximizers, who more or less grunted in response.
Piers closed his eyes, letting the notes of the song wash over him, calming himself down until he could hear each word before it came. It was fine. He’s done this a dozen times.
He barely remembered the motions that were exchanged when they took their places on stage, eyes still mostly close. The cheering of the crowd below him only intensified when he finally opened his eyes, and for a moment his breath was caught in his throat as he scanned the audience. Raihan should not have been hard to find - he stood a healthy two metres tall and had features so sharp they were hard to miss. For a brief moment, Piers felt a weight sink in his stomach, an unbecoming sense of disappointment inching into him.
He’s quickly had another reason to swallow. In the sea of neon hair colours and leather jackets, it was hard to see at first, but he found Raihan, dressed in a silver leather jacket that shimmered under the roving spotlights and a dark distressed tee shirt that revealed Raihan’s body underneath. Raihan beamed brightly when they made eye contact, and Piers nodded minutely, hoping the layers of powder caked on him were adequately hiding the warmth he could feel rising up on his face.
So Raihan was dressed in the colours of the scene.
Cool.
Nothing to be worried about.
To his side, the Toxitricity that shone blue began to pull at the first notes of the first song and he latched on to it for sanity’s sake, his eyes closed for some degree of grounding. The hours of rehearsal came back to him, and he took a brief moment to compose himself quickly, the rising notes from the rest of the band coming together.
The first words that he sung come mostly from muscle memory, and in the end it was easier to lose himself in the bubbling tides of emotion, to ride the crashing waves of intensity that surged through him than to disengage entirely from them. The screams of the audience become a distant point in his audio periphery, each song bleeding into the other seamlessly, making it easier to pour into each word an unknown intensity, the overwhelming culmination of every emotion that he had felt in the last few days, a futile attempt to empty the swirling hurricane inside him.
The low thrumming of each beat that reverberated through the room sounded like each beat in his heart, like there was an invisible thread that ran from him to each particle in the hall, each of his movements and each raw syllable he enunciated pulling the room along in his wake.
Before he knew it, he was on the final word of his last song as the band’s music slipping into a slow cadence. The crowd roared louder, and he opened his eyes hesitantly.
In the sea of people, he saw Raihan first this time, and the expression on Raihan’s face could only be described as a potent mix of awe and attraction, proving to Piers that after all that, he was only feeling more, not less. Piers took a tentative look behind at the band members behind him, who nodded encouragingly.
Right, the surprise that they had discussed. Even five minutes before the concert, he hadn’t been sure they would arrive at this point, but with Raihan looking up at him like that, he was sure of his this.
To the cheering crowd, Piers cleared his throat.
“Hi,” he said shyly, and a pin drop silence fell upon the hall. Piers was famed for never having addressed the audience before, and the tension that struck the space was palpable, “as you know, I don’t do encores. But I would like to do a request - my request. Thank you for accommodating me.”
He took a quick drink from the bottle that sat next to his foot, and cleared his mind. This wasn’t a song that he had written, but a cover of a popular song from several decades ago. Piers had been nervous that his cover wouldn’t take with his audience, but he was still riding on a high. Meeting Raihan’s eyes offered him with a profound sense of confidence, and he took a deep breath, all the while keeping eye contact with Raihan so that he knew that this song was for him.
The song started off with a slow smooth croon unlike anything in Piers’ own discography, but it was apparent that the audience recognised it. If Piers had thought they were cheering before, well, this was something else all together.
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you
You'd be like Heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
The wild screaming turned riotous, but never quite rising above the volume of the song that sounded through the hall, the audience singing along. Before him, Raihan looked wide eyed, mouthing the words in beat with Piers’ singing, and in that, Piers found a particular brand of assertion that had always remained elusive to him. Just before the chorus hit, the electric chords from Toxtricities pumped at their fullest, running wild and charged as the song taking on something more akin to his punk rock signature, and Piers let loose the words with brazen boldness.
I love you, baby
And if it's quite alright
I need you, baby
To warm the lonely night
I love you, baby
Trust in me when I say
It’s bizarre, Piers thought, that despite the hot, heated tension and the roaring of the crowds all around, he could only see Raihan in that moment, with a clarity like the hall only had the two of them. As Rillaboom played the last few notes in the song, Piers found himself struggling to relax, desperate to reach out to to Raihan, the tension inside him difficult to temper, especially when Raihan was looking at him like that.
He bowed with the band as the hall erupted into cheers, and they strode off stage, Piers still breathless from the whirlwind rush of his performance.
It’s only when he sat down in his chair in the dressing room did he realise how much his legs were shaking. His reflection in the mirror looked exhausted, much of his eyeliner smudged into two dark shadows around his eyes. Any remnant of powder still left on his face felt tacky to the touch, and he wished he had a wet towel of some kind. No, forget that, he could really go for a hot shower.
There was a knock on his door even before he could take a breather, someone poking his head into the room.
“Piers? There’s a Raihan out here, says he’s your friend?”
Piers jumped to standing, throat suddenly dry.
“Yeah. Yeah, he is. Let him in please. Thanks.”
There was only half a glass left of water in the water jug, and he finished all of that in one go, hands shaking slightly as he did from nerves. He moved things around on the dressing table mindlessly for want of something to do as he waited.
“Piers.”
Piers turned around, words caught in his throat. Up close, Raihan’s appearance left him all the more speechless, and he stared, slowly taking in the thick liner, the distressed tee and the leather jacket. Apparently, Piers had missed the skin tight jeans that closely highlighted the shape of Raihan’s legs and the high combat boots with bright yellow laces. Thankfully too - he’s not sure he wouldn’t have been able to pull of a performance if he had noticed it the first time around.
Raihan laughed nervously, shifting his weight, “Hah, it looks weird on me, doesn’t it?”
“No,” his voice came out painfully strangled, but thankfully Raihan didn’t seem to notice, “you look great. Uhm, fetching, even.”
Raihan laughed again, this time less nervous than before, “thanks, you look amazing too.”
Piers doubted that - he had seen himself in the mirror and his appearance post performance always left him looking like a wreck - but it was kind of Raihan to say. He shifted as well, recognising that he probably ought to address the Copperajah in the room. It might be easier if he knew what shape the tension between them took, if he was making up positive signs where he wanted to see them.
“Hey, listen, thanks for coming to see the show,” he swallowed, wondering which direction he ought to run with this.
In the end, it’s Raihan that helped him there.
“Piers, did you mean it?” Raihan said, still hovering by the door. Piers had never seen Raihan struck with so much doubt before - the other man had always held himself with so much confidence - and it was almost flattering to think that Piers could inspire that.
The last bit of rationality in his brain urged Piers to reply that the song was just a song, not some wild love sick confession, because there was still so much that they didn’t know about each other, that their short time together was no substitute for the stability of years of understanding. Even so, all that came to mind was the immense feeling from watching Raihan in his day to day, the way his chest warmed from all their interactions together.
Ah, what the hell. Uncle Grimsley always said it was better to go all in and lose cleanly if it came to that.
In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
“Yeah,” Piers said, feeling just a little braver, “I guess I do.”
“Fuck, Piers,” Raihan choked out, “can I please kiss you?”
It was not a large room to begin with, and Piers crossed it in three sharp strides, digging his hands in the lapels of Raihan’s jacket and pulled the man forward. It started off mostly chaste, just lips carefully finding each other with restrain, cautiously pressing together, and then again, and again, and again, until a quiet groan and the coquettish parting of lips against his left him painfully frustrated. Desperately, his fists tightened to pull Raihan even closer, relishing the way Raihan wrapped his arms around him, fingers tracing lines on the back of his neck, across his waist. They’ve touched before, with soft hugs and cuddles, but it hardly compared to this, a beat that pulled the whole song together with them finally in sync. A daring flick of tongue fluttered across his lips and he was sorely tempted to deepen things, but Piers pulled away with reluctance, remembering where they were.
Before him, Raihan was glassy eyed as he tried to chase after Piers for another kiss, and in that instant Piers found in himself a voracious appetite for something, a need that did not previously exist.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” Piers pressed, breathless despite himself, “and I could really do with a shower.”
The door behind Raihan was still open, but Piers was reluctant about moving from where he was. Raihan groaned and pulled Piers close, the faint smell of cologne and sweat filling Piers’ lungs. Like this, Piers could hear the resounding beats of Raihan’s heart, hear the way it belted forward at an insane speed.
“I know you’re right,” Raihan said into Piers’ head, “and I should get back to the hotel. I left Deino in Flygon’s watch, but it’s been an hour and a half and I’m nervous now. But this…”
“We’ll pick it up later,” Piers promised against Raihan’s chest, his voice muffled.
Even so, neither of them moved. There was a steady rhythm that thrummed between the both of them, and Piers didn’t want to be the one to break it.
“Hey,” Raihan said after a while, as they listened to the last of the concert-goers straggled out in the distance, “what are you thinking about?”
Piers hummed, trying to make coherent the emotions that ran full in his heart, wondering what kind of song about the both of them would sound like. He’s not sure how to put into words what he wanted with Raihan. Less than thinking about it, it felt more so like he was just living it, feeling the hurricane of emotion wash over him in each moment.
“I don’t know,” he whispered in response, “what are you thinking?”
Raihan moved back, pulling away slightly to meet Piers face on, fingers still nestled on the nape of neck, “I was thinking,” Raihan said, always the bolder of the two of them, pressing on despite the bright red blush that dusted the tip of ears, “I think I’m in love with you. And definitely in a more than platonic friendship kind of way?”
It should have been obvious, but he liked that Raihan spelt it out for him like that, removing any trace of doubt on his part.
“Yeah. Me too,” Piers said, smiling as Raihan lit up, “what should we do about it?”
“I suppose it’s customary for me to ask you out. Or you could ask me out,” Raihan said, starting to ramble on, a certain line of vulnerability in his tone masked under bravado, “whichever way, I’m not fussed, you know, maybe there’s some kind of procedure normally, but as long as…”
“Would you like to go out with me?” Piers asked, feeling a certainty in him.
“Yes,” Raihan said, laughing as buried his head into the crook of Piers’ neck, the sound beautiful and fantastic, even more so when it was lined up so close next to him, “Yes, I would love to go out with you,” and Piers squeezed him tighter in his embrace, effervescence in his chest as he laughed as well.