Chapter Text
Diantha feels awful.
Well actually, she feels much worse than just ‘awful’. She has this dull migraine that’s lingered for… a few hours at least now, which caused her to leave the coffee mug untouched for the past two hours.
It’s nothing compared to the inner war that she’s waged on her own mind, though, as she watches the rest of Cynthia’s mandatory Champion Stadium battles for the day on her laptop. And while Diantha could have shown up in-person, she’s found out in the past that people simply stop caring about it the moment they find out some sort of celebrity is in the audience somewhere, and she doesn’t want to disrespect Cynthia like that.
(Cynthia had agreed with her. She, too, had found out firsthand just how chaotic the crowd was around her once they’d located her in the crowd of Diantha’s first Champion Stadium.)
Earlier in the morning, as she lounged on the couch with her Pokemon, she’d noticed a comment with her name on it on the livestream chat. Curious, she’d placed her mug down to scroll back up to it.
thetiniesttree: lol thank arceus its not the kalos stadium this week. dianthas a snoozefest
It didn’t take long for her to notice a reply to the original message.
HSAProductions: ikr? can’t believe they’re dating. Cynthia can do so much better than her
HSAProductions: doesn’t she and Steven share the same interests anyway like???
thetiniesttree: ur kidding right? theres no way how r the best and worst champions dating
HSAProductions: ikr, I thought it was a joke too, like she’s the most forgetful Champion out of all the regions
HSAProductions: if I lived in Kalos I’m sure I’d dumpster her
thetiniesttree: lol same
She should be used to this sort of gossip by now. It’s been years since she last wasn’t able to shake off those sorts of comments that loom over her until it feels like someone’s squeezing her neck until the words morph into the tears that escape down her face in streams. She’s more well-known in the relationship—no offense to Cynthia, of course—so if anything, she should be the one who’s more used to the hate that every Champion is undoubtedly going to receive. She’d like to think that she would’ve understood how to deal with it by now, but apparently she still finds herself sobbing over something as trivial as the ‘most forgetful Champion out of all the regions’ and the self-esteem she’d built up over the years topples and crashes into a pile of dirt and searing dismay.
Was she really that terrible of a Champion? Sure, she was certainly absent in comparison to all of the other Champions, choosing to spend all of that time training with her Pokemon and juggling her acting career with being the Kalos Champion. Admittedly, she’d initially been dismissive of the idea of mentoring young trainers in fear that she'd lose her title and tarnish her reputation as a result. That was before she helped guide Iris, though, and finally understood the pride that Cynthia must’ve felt watching Dawn and Lucas grow as trainers. She’d finally understood after years, and Arceus, wasn’t she stupid? Every other Champion had it figured it out by then—Yveltals’ wings, if she had put two and two together she could’ve helped Serena and Calem—but Diantha had spent her time wallowing in the fact that Cynthia was nigh-impossible to beat and that all the other Champions must’ve been at least somewhat on her level and that how she must’ve looked like a Caterpie compared to the rest of them—
“It’s not too late,” Lance’s voice echoes. “You can start with whoever needs you the most.”
She’d kept his words very close to heart ever since. He hadn’t seemed to be very judgmental, and Cynthia certainly hadn’t been—but then again, that would never be enough for the public. And it still wouldn’t help her strength as a Champion, which people deemed her lacking—
But not Cynthia, because Cynthia was so much better than her—
What had Diantha done for Cynthia since she’d gotten to Pasio? Cynthia had been the one to offer her a place to stay, who was often giving her advice and helping her train—and Diantha… well, she’s been useless through it all.
Useless, useless, useless—
“Hey, I’m home!”
Diantha looks up from the kitchen counter to see Cynthia grinning at her.
“Hey darling,” Diantha responds, her voice much less stable than she would’ve liked it to be.
Cynthia raises her visible eyebrow but thankfully doesn’t comment. “It smells heavenly in here,” she says, taking off her coat. “What is it?”
“Just one of Siebold’s recipes without his cooking prowess,” Diantha replies, waving a hand dismissively.
Cynthia shakes her head, visibly amused. “You should give yourself more credit.” She walks over to the stovetop and lifts the lid of the pot. “Careful, I might eat all of this in one go.”
“At least go and wash your hands first, you monster.”
She hears Cynthia snorting with laughter all the way to the bathroom.
After Cynthia makes her way back and Diantha gently places a bowl in front of her, Diantha sits down across from her.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
Diantha shakes her head. “I have to say something first.”
Cynthia places her spoon down. “What is it?”
It, for a lack of a better word, hurts so incredibly bad to see just how attentive Cynthia is. Diantha feels as though she’s taken advantage of Cynthia’s kindness somehow, and that as long as Diantha stays here with her, she’ll continue doing it.
Which is exactly why she needs to do what she’s doing.
“I should move out.”
Cynthia blinks, her gentle smile frozen in what she can only decipher as confusion.
“I… don’t think it’s working out,” Diantha continues. “I feel like it's just not right that I’m living here with you. You deserve so much better, and clearly I’m just—” Leeching off of you, she wants to say, but the words get caught in her throat when she sees Cynthia’s expression morph into one of horror.
“What did I do wrong?” Cynthia looks like she’s on the verge of tears now, and something shatters inside of her. “Is there something that you never told me?”
“Cynthia—” Diantha begins sliding her hand over to Cynthia’s, but winces when Cynthia flinches away from her.
“I thought what we had was perfect,” Cynthia says quietly, and she sounds so small—so unlike the Cynthia that she knows so well that it scares her.
“No. No, it was never perfect.” Diantha’s voice is shaky now. “You’re the one that was perfect.”
The gray eye that’d been dulling then suddenly widens in disbelief as Cynthia regards Diantha. “Then why in the world are you breaking up with me?”
Diantha stares at Cynthia, the horrid emotions she’d been dealing with all day halting completely in their tracks as she registers exactly what Cynthia had just said.
“Wh—what?”
They look at each other for a few moments in silence, now both mulling everything over, silence swirling around them like the ominous fog surrounding Cynthia’s hometown.
“Oh. Oh.” Diantha is the one to break the silence. “Oh, my darling, no. I’m not breaking up with you as long as you don’t want to break up with me.”
“Why would I want to break up with you?”
She’s an idiot, she realizes. Of course it sounded like she was breaking up with Cynthia. She’d given such negligible context in hopes of skirting around her emotions that she’d ended up hurting Cynthia instead. And Cynthia’s glaring at her and honestly, that’s fair, Diantha thinks to herself, clenching her hands together like her life depends on it.
“Because I’ve been a horrible person, and I’m still a terrible Champion and I’m an awful girlfriend who just takes and takes and takes from you!” And somewhere during her little rant, the tears that’d been threatening to fall all day finally did so, and she’s sobbing as she continues babbling incoherently about the livestream comments and about how Cynthia had provided so much for her and—
“Honey,” Cynthia cuts in gently. “Diantha. Look at me.”
Reluctantly, Diantha raises her head—tears still trickling down her cheeks and sniffling—to look up at Cynthia, whose expression has melted into gentle sympathy. And in this moment, as the tousled waves threaten to tug her under and drown every last bit of happiness she’d fought for in the past few years, Cynthia snatches her arm and doesn’t let go.
“You have done so much for me already,” Cynthia murmurs softly, producing a tissue out of thin air and wiping the tears from Diantha’s face. “I’m already eternally grateful for you. I mean, I can’t imagine anyone else could’ve eased me into eating actual meals. You saw what my fridge was like before.”
Diantha lets out a breathy laugh. “I can’t unsee the amount of sugar you had in there before.”
“Yeah,” Cynthia agrees. “You tidy up my office, because Arceus knows how messy it would’ve been now if it weren’t for your help. You helped ease me into better sleeping habits. Diantha, I was an absolute mess of a person before you came into my life. Taking care of myself was never in my vocabulary. But now you’re here, and you’re taking care of me, and it makes me want to take care of you, too.”
She places a kiss on Diantha’s forehead. “And I know that you’ve become a better person since then, too. Not that you were ever a bad person, because otherwise we would never be in this relationship to begin with. You know that at least, right?” She pauses for an answer, and Diantha nods. “Right. Because for this to work, we need both of us. So just… talk to me, okay? And if you’re not ready, don’t let yourself jump to extremes, alright?”
Diantha pulls Cynthia into a hug instead of responding with words, and Xerneas antlers’, when Cynthia embraces her back it’s so warm and comforting that Diantha wants to start crying again.
“For the record,” Cynthia says, tightening her embrace, “the trainers who always boast they can beat a certain Champion are often the worst at battling. You’re incredibly strong and intelligent in your own right. Please don’t ever forget that.”
As much as she wants to disagree, Cynthia sounds so confident that her heart goes along with it.
“Thank you,” Diantha whispers, her voice muffled by Cynthia’s shirt. “I love you so much. I hope you know that.”
“I love you too,” Cynthia says, leaning away from Diantha’s grip just so that she can lean back in for a kiss.
By the time they’ve finished with dinner (after spending a considerable amount of time arguing over Cynthia’s bowl, which had gone regrettably cold), Diantha finds herself laughing along Cynthia as she retells the time when Volkner had compared Flint’s Magmortar to the Jubilife City clowns during an official Sinnoh Pokemon League event and, by proxy, had almost burned the entire stadium down.