Work Text:
The band’s upbeat tempo slows to a crawl. They replace the trumpet with delicate guitar harmonies. The lead singer starts some breathy ‘80s ballad in Paldean. May doesn’t say a word – but she turns and smiles at him in the dark, and puts one hand on his shoulder and intertwines their fingers with the other, and they start to sway.
There’s something about her touch that always makes Wally feel small, in a pleasant and nostalgic way, like he’s thirteen again and she’s pulling him along Route 104 for the first time. He sees them for a moment as antisocial teenagers in a Unovan high-school movie, hiding in the bleachers at junior prom. Warm ambient light creates a halo behind her cropped hair – in another life, it’d be pink and green spotlights instead, beaming out from the shitty cover band’s set in a worn-down gymnasium. The thought of gymnasium-smell makes him glad he’s grown. He’s never been a very good dancer, anyway. Unovan high-schoolers in a movie would take the piss out of him on prom night. He’s got no rhythm.
“Hey,” May murmurs. “Look at you. You’re staying on beat.”
Wally looks down at his loafers. He’s actually got the rhythm this time. He almost chokes and loses it. May grips his shoulder a little tighter, and he recovers on the next four-count.
“You must’ve picked something up from Mr. Lobanov,” she says. Now they’re both staring at his shoes in shock and awe. “I told you it wouldn’t be so bad sharing a hallway.”
“His classroom is twice the size of mine and he rubs it in my face all the time. The walls are like paper in our corner. It’s pretty bad.”
“Of course it’s bigger! He’s got instruments in there!” The amused lilt in her voice is too contagious for him not to smile at it. “Have you seen the giant violins?”
“The– the basses ?”
“What- ever! ” Wally knows that May knows what a bass is called. She’s not subtle about busting his chops. “I think it’s good for you. Mr. Lobanov’s fun at parties. And he really respects you. He told me when you left to get rebujitos earlier. Everybody needs a work wife.”
“You have a work wife?”
“Swampert.”
“Of course.”
Wally’s about to roll his eyes and start poking fun at her for being more passionate about her relationship with her mudskipper than with her brother. But they half-turn as he looks up, and the music swells and he hears glasses clinking and the shuffling of feet and Director Clavell’s hearty old man laugh carrying across the room, and May is smiling at him, and he’s an antisocial teenager in the bleachers at prom.
Their eyes meet. Her smile stretches into a grin, the kind where her eyebrows furrow a little and her nose crinkles and her dimples show, the kind where the healed-over gashes on her cheek frame her face in the way that makes his coworkers fawn over her behind her back. And they’re slow dancing in the corner by the bleachers at senior prom, and every stupid jock in the gymnasium wants to be dancing with May in his loafers right now, and the Beautiflies in his stomach are so restless that he almost loses the rhythm again.
“Are you nervous?” May asks.
“No,” Wally says, like a liar.
“Oh.” She looks over her shoulder, then back at him. Her smile falters. “Really? Because I’m so nervous I could hurl. Everyone here is so professional. And I keep embarrassing myself trying to speak Paldean. Do you think they care? I don’t want to, like, make you look bad, or something…”
“May,” his breath in between is somewhere between a wheeze and a laugh. “I am completely lying to your face. I could pass out right now. I feel like an imposter every time I clock in. But I think most of the people in this room feel the same way. So it doesn’t freak me out as much anymore.”
“Oh.” She exhales. It’s a little wheezy, too, but she’s smiling again. “Good. It’s not just me.”
“Never just you.” Wally squeezes her hand in his. She squeezes back. “And you being here makes me look so much better. I promise.”
“I do do that,” she laughs, softly, but doesn’t sound particularly convinced.
“I’m serious!” May has seen Wally at his absolute worst on multiple occasions. The first time he held her hand was a little more than twelve years ago. They’ve probably had this conversation half a dozen times before over the past decade. It’s just as nerve-wracking for him every single time. She’s just got that kind of energy about her, he reassures himself, the kind that throws you off-rhythm and leaves dancing spots in your vision like staring into the Sun. He can’t hold her gaze for too long. “You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here. I can’t believe it sometimes. Neither can the break room.”
“The break room?”
“Rika says you’re out of my league.”
May chokes. “No way .”
“I would not lie about being owned like that.” Wally has to laugh a little bit at himself, if only to keep from cringing at the memory. “I know it’s hard to think about how other people see you differently from the way you see yourself. I have the same problem. But you’re something special. I am always serious about that.”
When he meets May’s eyes again, she looks like she feels small, and he hopes it’s in the pleasantly nostalgic way.
She smiles at him. It’s radiant.
He stumbles off-beat. May catches him by the shoulder, pulls herself in closer, and guides him back into step. He stares directly into the Sun, and smiles back at it.
“You’re pretty special, too,” May whispers. She’s beaming.
He’s going to say something meaningful and romantic, and then he loses his breath a little on the windup, and says instead, “I think I might be hallucinating right now.”
“You’re not,” she answers. “Want me to pinch you?”
Wally nods. May pinches him in the side.
“ Ow, ” he says. And then she laughs at him. And then he kisses her.