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Leon throws off his cape, the way he would before a big match. Charizard is already out of her ball, spewing flames at the dragon. He sends out Aegislash, and Haxorus, and Mr Rime.
Eternatus, whatever it is, is at the end of a day, a dragon. It will go down, like every other dragon he has taken on.
This he repeats to himself, over and over until his team lie on the roof of the building, battered and bleeding out. He returns them to their balls, and faces the behemoth alone.
WHY?
He hears the voice, not with his ears but with his bones, his veins shaking with the force of it.
WHY DO YOU ATTACK ME?
"Need to save Galar," he whispers through gritted teeth. “Stop you from destroying it.”
"Lee?"
Leon blinks awake and reaches out for the titan, feeling alone for the first time in weeks.
His fingers make contact with something soft, silky - polyester, not silk, his brain supplies - and then Raihan's hoodie.
Oh. His legs collapse under him, still unused to processing commands from his brain - his brain, his orders, not Eternatus’. Or Ezra’s. The titan had been pleased with that name.
"Lee."
Raihan's voice is breathy and right next to his ear because Leon's collapsed on top of him and the only thing keeping him upright is Raihan's arms around his back and Raihan smells of sandstorms and sun and salt and -
"Arceus, I thought you were gone." He can feel the wetness on his skin.
Raihan’s tears feel like an offering, a sacrament he wishes he could swallow. It is a gift, to be cried over, as though he is worth something.
Leon is boneless as Raihan cries himself dry, and all too soon, the taller man straightens up.
"C'mon, we need to get you home."
Home. He thinks of his empty apartment in Wyndon, all industrial greys and sleek furniture. He lives in it approximately a quarter of the year and spends the rest of his time touring the other parts of Galar living out of a suitcase and gleaming hotel rooms owned by Macro Cosmos.
"Can we go to your place instead?"
Raihan's hand tightens against his back. "Sure."
Leon is so, so tired. He just wants everything to end.
LET US SEE THIS WORLD THROUGH YOUR EYES, LEON OF POSTWICK.
Eternatus places a single claw on his chest. Something catches, and the titan dives in.
A few weeks of being possessed by an almost godlike being and he does not recognise himself in the mirror.
True, his goatee has transformed into a full bushy beard - closer to a snarl of hair really, because Raihan never brushed it out the way he did with his hair. There are scabs at his temples where there were once horns. His body is blotchy and peeling because Ezra liked to sunbathe when Raihan wasn’t around. His skin where the markings had appeared is a little lighter than the rest of it, and one can still make out the strange twisting patterns.
More than anything, it is his eyes that have turned him a stranger.
Leon the Champion was always smiling, intent. Sure and focused on what he had to do.
The man in the mirror looks utterly lost.
YOU ARE LOVED, IN THIS WORLD, the titan rumbles under his skin. YOU ARE... FORTUNATE.
Leon knows he is loved. He is told this, constantly, just as he is constantly told what to eat and how to dress and what he can and cannot say in public.
What does it mean to be loved if the only thing they see is a reflection? A perfect persona, with just enough flaws to seem human. He got lost the one time in Wyndon as a tiny boy and Rose had suggested “Let’s make him hopeless with directions, it’s endearing enough."
He thinks of his mother who he speaks to once a week on the phone and tells him she loves him and he knows she thinks only of the little boy who he had been. He thinks of his brother, who only knows him through stories and his pictures on the news.
It is no less all-encompassing. It is no less suffocating.
There is something wrong with him, that he has had the world at his fingertips but hates it and only wants to run away.
Leon wonders at his selfishness, but finds he can’t bear to change anyway.
Raihan comes clattering into the bathroom with fresh towels heaped in his arms, not minding the fact that Leon is completely naked. Leon flushes and remembers all the times Raihan had bathed him and Eternatus. Raihan seems to quickly realise his embarrassment, and quickly leaves him alone with clean clothes and hot towels.
Leon aches, and wants.
HE LOVES YOU, YOU KNOW.
Leon howls inside of his head. Why are you telling him that?
The titan is confused. SHOULD YOU NOT TELL HIM?
What does it matter now, Raihan says. Face turned so Leon can’t see his expression, folding Leon’s filthy clothes into his arms.
What does it matter indeed? Except this is a secret Leon has held close for almost a decade now, and one that Eternatus has ripped open to show the world like a wound. He can't bear to think of Raihan looking at him differently.
The titan is almost gentle in his head. HE ALREADY DOES.
Leon tries to breathe as Raihan brushes his hair, his finger brushing gently against his scalp as he tugs.
Raihan knows, thanks to Eternatus' big mouth.
But still, Raihah doesn't push him away, is still comfortable touching him, and continues gently tugging a brush through his hair. As though Leon were a skittish dragon in the Hammerlocke sanctuary. In a way, he supposes he is.
"Do you need help with the beard?"
"Yes," Leon says, as he will always say yes to any time spent with Raihan. Raihan motions for him to turn around, and begins rummaging around his extensive toiletries collection.
"Why didn't you just shave it off?” Leon asks. “In the Wild Area, I mean.”
"Ah. I thought it might help. Make you look different, in case anyone saw you."
Leon snorts and stares at himself in the mirror. His hair isn't a snarl of tangles anymore, but he still looks like an urban legend, the kind of half-man, half-beast young trainers would scare themselves telling stories over when camping in the Wild Area. Which he supposes he was, while possessed.
Raihan takes a pair of scissors and hacks at his beard until it is close enough to trim with a clipper, and he works to shaping it into Leon's usual goatee. Raihan’s hands are warm and gentle against his skin, even as Leon arches his neck to make it easier for him to reach.
"How much do you remember?" Raihan asks as he works.
Leon hesitates. "Almost nothing," he lies. "It's all a fog.” He looks at himself in the mirror, touches his face. Apart from the blotchy skin and scarring, the muscle loss, he almost looks like himself again. Almost. Like an impersonator, paid to attend parties and give out Charmander plushies to five-year-olds.
"Ah. Good." Raihan gathers the towels on the floor while pointedly not looking at Leon. "I suppose it's for the best."
I INTEND THIS WORLD NO HARM.
Leon pauses at that.
"Truly?"
MY KIND DOES NOT EAT PLANETS. WE DEVOUR STARS.
"We would die if you ate our sun!"
WOULD IT BE SO BAD FOR YOU ALL TO DIE? SO MUCH PAIN IN THIS WORLD. IT WOULD ALL END QUICKLY.
"No!"
This is what Leon the Champion wants. This is what he is expected to say.
Leon of Poswick is tired. It would, he thinks, be nice for it all to end.
No more photoshoots. No more 7am meetings. No more running after Rose's every beck and call.
It's why he was so eager for his match with Victor. He'd known his sun had begun to set the first time he saw the boy battle - what feels like eons ago now, outside of his childhood home in Postwick. He had dreamed of retirement for weeks, thought of buying a cosy house in Hammerlocke. Helping Galar and Rose will be a choice, not an obligation. He will learn to cook, like he'd always wanted. Groom his Pokemon, instead of teaching them to fight. Visit Raihan.
No more Raihan, if the world ended.
No more Hop. Or Sonia.
His moment of selfishness passes.
I FEEL YOUR DOUBT, CHAMPION.
"There is no doubt," he hisses. "I won't let you destroy this world."
I DON'T WANT TO.
“Then what do you want?”
The answering reply pours down like a dam overflowing.
They have to tell Leon's family. At least, Raihan paces and says that they have to. Leon entertains the thought of staying in Raihan’s apartment forever, without anyone knowing, and thinks he likes the sound of it. Then he remembers Hop, and his parents, and Sonia, and the guilt almost pulls him apart. He has been selfish for so long.
“We’d better get the story straight first,” Raihan sighs and slumps on the couch next to him.
It can’t be comfortable - generally the whole of this couch is Raihan’s because his legs are so long, and Leon usually flops on the squashy armchair next to it so Raihan has all the leg room needed to lounge and be comfortable.
Leon is being selfish now. It seems to be his default status of being, though he rationalises that it’s fine since he’s gone more than a decade sacrificing himself for Galar. He leans in close to Raihan, inhaling the smell of his skin. Raihan doesn’t push him away, and he wonders if it is pity or kindness that lets him stay close.
Raihan’s apartment is, uncharacteristically, a wreck. It’s always been cluttered, but in a homey sort of way, but it has a stale musty smell now, and a fine layer of dust over everything.
"Where's Eter- Ezra?"
Raihan gestures at the stack of Ultraballs by the cupboard in the corner. There are two boxes of them, and he counts and realises -
“Is that my team?”
“Yeah, I’ve been letting them out in the yard with mine for a few hours every day. They’ve missed you.”
“Oh.”
He misses them too. But he can still remember Charizard’s roaring, the way Raihan’s Turtanator backed away from him and Ezra.
Raihan seems to hesitate, then drags an arm around Leon and pulls him down to lay on the couch, Leon’s face to Raihan’s chest, their legs tangling into a mess.
“Sorry my place is a dump,” he mumbles into Leon’s hair and Leon's heart breaks at how tired he sounds.
“You shouldn’t be apologising!” Leon protests, because Raihan shouldn't. “You’ve been looking after my Pokemon, and you’ve been taking care of me, and dealing with the clean up in Hammerlocke and helping Gloria and I don’t even know when you last slept - "
Raihan’s hand moves to Leon’s face, tilts his chin up. He looks more awake now than he did a moment before. “I never told you any of that.”
Leon gulps. No, he’d told Eternatus - Ezra.
“Lee. You remember, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Leon whispers, because there is no point in denying it.
“I don’t understand. Why lie?” Raihan asks, wide-eyed and confused.
“I just want things to go back to the way they were,” Leon whispers. “But that can’t happen now, can it?”
“We’re still going to have to break it to the world that you’re alive, bruv. Rose is in jail, and your family thinks you're dead. Things will be diffeernt, one way or other.”
“I wanted - “ Leon drops his gaze, unable to look at Raihan.
He is so so selfish.
Somehow, the dragon trainer knows not to push.
They walk out into Raihan’s yard instead, and Raihan releases Ezra. The titan floats toward Raihan, all strange jagged lines and glowing with a faint red light. Leon raises one hesitant hand to their face, and feels the cool hard plates press against his skin.
HOME. HOME. I WANT TO GO HOME. SCARED. SO MUCH NOISE. SO MUCH PAIN. HOW DO YOU ALL LIVE LIKE THIS? WANTED TO SLEEP. SLEEP. AWAY FROM THIS NOISE. WHY DID THE ONE CALLED CHAIRMAN ROSE WAKE ME?
The dragon does not move from where it is hovering in the sky, but Leon can feel it thrashing under his skin.
I REMEMBER NOW. HE WANTED TO HARVEST ME. SLICE THE PARTS OF MY BODY, PIECE BY PIECE. EACH TASTE FUELLING YOUR WORLD. THE HUMANS WANT ME TO DIE.
“We just want you to leave us alone!”
DO YOU REALLY, LEON OF POSTWICK?
"Turns out space dragons like scratches as much as any other dragon," Raihan says, holding up the shovel he uses for his Gigalith. "Don't you, Ezra?" He coos - actually coos the with the same voice one would use to address a newly hatched Goomy.
Leon watches Ezra flip over so they are belly up and thinks - of course Raihan would be able to take the giant poisonous space dragon that could casually destroy their entire world. Raihan is good at everything he sets his mind to.
"Leon?"
“Leon?”
ATTACK. ATTACK. WE WILL BE ATTACKED. STRIKE FIRST - POISON TO WEAKEN, FLY AFTER.
No! That’s Raihan. He’ll take care of us.
ARE YOU SURE? THIS HUMAN IS STRONG. STRONG STRONG STRONG. CAN YOU SMELL IT?
Leon feels a strange prickle of pride.
Yes, he is strong. He is a friend.
FRIEND?
Friend. He won't hurt us.
“Leon?”
They turn.
“NO,” Eternatus says.
Raihan stares at them as though they are a monster. Leon wants to hold him, tell him he is there.
WHAT IS STOPPING YOU? Eternatus says.YOU CAN STILL MOVE YOUR LIMBS.
Can't. He can't know - can't know that I'm still here.
WHY?
He'd know I'm running away.
Then Raihan takes them by the hand and pulls them through the maze of Hammerlock corridors.
As Flygon takes off, Leon reaches blindly for Raihan, and breathes in the smell of sandstorms.
“Leon?”
Leon blinks and feels himself come together again. “Sorry.”
Raihan is smiling, but he can tell he’s still worried. “Was worried I lost you again.”
“Nah. Head-in-the-clouds, as always. You know me.” He laughs, and even he can hear how hollow the sound is.
It is lonely in his own head, all by himself. To think something and to not hear an echo in reply.
Leon stares up at Ezra and reaches out. Ezra seems to close their eyes.
“I do.” Raihan holds out a handful of Ultraballs to Leon. “Do you want to meet your team again?”
You said that Rose wanted to harvest your pieces?
The titan rumbles under his skin. YES.
Yes. It sounds just like something Rose would do. Leon thinks of all the pieces of that has been taken away for years.
Not all humans are like that, he whispers.
A pause, as though the beast is weighing his words.
NO, they agree. MASTER IS NOT.
Charizard tackles him to the ground while hugging him and making strange puffing noises. Dragapult phases through him several times, making odd chirping sounds. Ageislash hangs in the background, but Leon can tell he is pleased. And Haxorus just roars, over and over again.
Leon cries. He can't help it.
Raihan smiles from above, beatific and kind, and Leon wishes with all his heart he was good enough for him.
In the end, it’s not so bad, Leon decides.
He eats when he wants, sleeps when he wants. There are no meetings or photoshoots or press conferences to disturb him. The other Pokemon give them a wide berth, so he’s never disturbed.
Eternatus delights in the sun, and the rain and all the other strange weather systems that the Wild Area experiences.
Every time he feels a twinge of guilt that his family and Sonia must be worried sick about him, he firmly quashes it down and tells himself that he’s now the vessel for a giant space dragon, so of course he can’t very well see them.
Raihan comes by every other day and stays for a few hours. He never says anything much to Leon, but as time goes by, he gets more a little more comfortable, a bit more chatty. He seems to be perpetually exasperated by Eternatus’ lack of social graces, so Leon never bothers correcting Eternatus, if it means Raihan will keep bathing him, or pulling him away from poisonous berries. It’s like he’s ten again, excited and new in the wide world while Raihan keeps him from getting into too much trouble.
He wishes they could stay like this, always.
And later, when it is night and Raihan has ordered in pizza because they are both too tired to cook and there are no groceries whatsoever in the house, and Leon does his best to help Raihan clean the place, and practices saying his piece in his head over and over, Leon speaks.
"I didn't want you to think of me as a coward,” he says. His lips are dry and chapped from his habit of licking them when they are nervous, and he's not put any lip balm on in weeks.
"I would never think that." Raihan says with so much feeling and Leon truly wants to believe him. “You were trying to save us.”
Leon inhales. “I let Eternatus - Ezra - in because I was tired of being Leon.”
It says something about their friendship that Raihan doesn't ask Leon what he means, only takes his hand and squeezes it.
Or maybe Leon is just really bad at hiding what he thinks. More likely the latter.
“I don’t blame you,” Raihan says. “You’ve been run ragged for the last ten years.”
Leon laughs brokenly. “It’s one thing when you want to end yourself. It’s another when you take the rest of the world with it.”
“What do you mean?”
Here is the hard part, the part that might make Raihan turn away from him and never look at him again.
“Ezra’s kind eats stars.” He twists his shirt - Raihan’s shirt, because Raihan would give the shirt off the back to give to someone who needed it. "They offered to eat the sun, and I almost said yes.” Raihan would never think of even considering letting the world end.
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I just let them possess me and run away instead.” He tries to sound lighthearted, when he knows, knows that this is all going to fall apart under his fingers.
Then Raihan deviates from the script. Frowning, he asks “So what happens to Ezra now? If they don't eat the sun? Is that what they meant when they said - "
“That they would die?” It is just like Raihan to be worried about those around him. Meanwhile Leon can only fret about how things go badly because he is selfish. “Yes. But not now.”
“Right.”
Leon tries to get them back on track. “I’m not the good perfect person you think I am.”
“I know you’re not perfect, Lee.”
“No, you don’t! Because you wouldn’t be here with me if I wasn’t!”
Raihan lets go of Leon’s hand and covers his face. He sucks in a breath, and the sound seems to go on and on and on.
Then he looks Leon in the eye. “You don’t have any kind of respect for other people’s time. You’ve stood me up more times than I can count because of some kind of last-minute meeting, or you just forget. You forget birthdays. You forget dates, if they’re not tied to your calendar, and I think that’s just something that’s going to continue if you ever stopped being Champion.” His mouth twitches slightly now. “And you never ask if I want the last slice of pizza.”
“I’m sorry,” Leon says automatically.
"I know all of this. And I’m still here with you, because you’re still the best person I know. You know how important it is to give a show and put on a good face because you’re not thinking of yourself, you’re thinking of the people who are looking up to you. You’re doing your best while you’ve barely had any kind of control over your life.”
He’s shocked to feel Raihan’s lips drop to his forehead.
“Ezra said you loved me,” Raihan whispers. “Is that still true?”
Leon gasps. “Of course it is!”
“Okay.” The hands around him tighten. “I’m not letting go then.”
“I - what?”
Raihan sighs. “For a genius, you can be incredibly thick. Can't blame you, I guess.” Lips against his forehead again. “It means Leon, I’ve been in love with you since… well. Almost as long as I'd known you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
They stay like that for a very long time, until Leon reaches up on his tiptoes to press his lips against Raihan’s.
Tomorrow, they will face public. And they will do it together.
Leon falls asleep in Raihan's bed, with Raihan curled around him. He dreams of floating through space.