Chapter Text
Lying on Solidad and Harley’s couch in their Pewter City apartment, Drew lets out a heavy sigh, as he holds an empty piece of stationary with a Geodude-print over his head with one hand and a pen in the other in frustration.
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say,” he says with an annoyed groan, which elicits a small laugh from the woman preparing a pitcher full of orange mimosas at the kitchen island.
“Hello, my name is Drew Hayden. I am in desperate need of more friends since I’m heartbroken, overworked, and under-socialized,” she says with a sing-song gravity to her voice. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You’re hilarious,” he says sarcastically, sitting up just enough to make eye contact with the other Coordinator-turned-Head-Judge, he shoots daggers at her before letting his torso hit the couch in defeat again. The whole situation is utterly ridiculous, even she had to admit it. He didn’t need his best friend and his Roserade to team up in mothering him into finding friends by enlisting him in some anonymous Poképals penpal network because they doubt he will socialize outside of work hours and think that he’s spiraling.
The spiraling wasn’t entirely inaccurate; he had been a mess these past few months ever since May ditched him at the podium for their win in the Wallace Cup’s double-trainer double-battle latest iteration. It was customary for him to jettisoning himself from the after-parties the second he could, but she refused to even collect the ribbon with him after their fight. Then, she ignored all his messages. Then, she didn’t show up to compete in the Grand Festival, even though the Wallace Cup ribbon would have been her fifth. Then, she refused to even see him when he traveled to Petalburg City to make up in person. Now, he’s on Harley and Soldiad’s couch in Pewter ‘vegetating’ according to Harley, which Drew is still shocked was even in Harley’s lexicon to begin with, until he needs to report to Lilycove City to start his first season as Hoenn Regional Chair and Head Judge for the Pokémon Activities Committee.
“Was anything I said wrong?” No. But she doesn’t need the confirmation.
“I’m socializing plenty,” he says as the nonchalant lie passes from his lips, as if the ten most recent Pokénav message threads in his phone were not work threads and instead were dear friends he’d made in his time coordinating. To be fair, Harley and Solidad’s threads were fairly active, even if their ‘One Big Happy Family’ thread had been silent these past few months since his fall out with May. Besides, he had texted May and Max; it isn’t his fault they chose to ghost him. He still reached out.
“Harley and I don’t count, you know,” she tuts as she fills an ice cube tray with little Slowbro faces with water.
Realizing he doesn’t have a leg to stand on he grumbles, “I’m still not using my name. If I found out they were a fan baiting me I might ask Flygon to Flamethrower me.”
“Fine. Be mysterious then. But you do have to send a letter. Can you—” Solidad goes to ask, but before she finishes the sentence, he lazily gives a single finger gun, using the hand holding an unused pen, at his Masquerain who is flitting about the apartment. As if on cue, the Eyeball Pokémon uses a controlled Ice Beam on the tray, to freeze the standing water in a swift action they’d been practicing since ‘vegetating’ at Solidad’s.
Solidad offers Masquerain thanks who returns a happy chirp, as Roserade comes over to him and gives a gentle nudge with her bouquet to get him to sit up and get out of his funk. He sits up, absentmindedly petting the white rose petals atop her head as he thinks, before putting pen to paper.
As he finishes writing, Solidad brings him one of the mimosas she’s poured with the freshly-frozen ice cubes and ruffles his hair with all the affection of the sororal figure she’s become to him. He can’t thank her enough for letting him crash here with her and Harley for a time, considering it’d be a bit awkward to have returned to Petalburg in between seasons like he’d become accustomed to. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to go home and deal with family, so his Coordinating family had to be the next best thing. In living amongst the mountainous quietude, Drew can tell why Solidad had missed this place and had been so eager to accept her Kanto Regional Chair and Head Judge position the second she could.
They all were getting older, and she was getting tired of moving from Pokémon Center to Pokémon Center in city to city when working and training for the Contest circuit. He couldn’t help but feel similarly, when he accepted the Hoenn job, knowing he could have a steady home base wherever he saw fit and just use Flygon to get to the Contest Halls for events as needed. Camping and biking across the region became less of an obligation and more of a vacation luxury when you were the one doling out the ribbons instead of collecting them.
She also made the place entirely home-y, decorated eclectically with her taste with little embellishments that screamed Harley here and there. He’s still not entirely sure if they are dating or are just platonic best friends and flatmates, but at this point he’s too afraid to ask and it’s not like Harley’s had the Coordinator’s Weekly staff cover it yet. He’s sure the Editor in Chief would make his own relationship front-page news if something occurred so there’s few things he’s been dreading more than seeing their engagement announcement on a newsstand. It’s strange to think of someone as bombastic as Harley living in this sleepy mountain city as opposed to somewhere like Mauvile or Jublife, but he seems to be happy enough retired from Coordinating and pursuing a career in gossiping full-time from his home office in Pewter. It suited them both so well, just like his plans were going to be.
Before this mess, he was thinking about investing in a small place in Petalburg with his Contest winnings , considering how accustomed to the small city he’d become. All his Pokémon loved the nearby woods and he enjoyed being close enough to the ocean without being stuck on the overdeveloped techno-utopia of an island he was raised on. Drew had envisioned answering his conference calls in the Petalburg Gym Greenhouse or having lunch with Caroline on occasion, bringing her flowers in exchange for her enviable home cooking. He’d been slowly integrated into the Maple household over the years of traveling with May, especially when Caroline learned of his own contentious family situation, and it seemed like an ideal future, but the dream clearly wasn’t to be.
Trying to ignore the what could have been that haunts him and focus on ‘seizing the day’ like Harley has been so annoyingly insistent on, Drew addresses the letter. After checking his Pokénav to confirm, he writes in his correspondent’s specific code number, so that the delivery Pokémon could drop it off at the nearest Pokémon Center to their current location and notify them. It’s a rather elaborate system in the face of digital communications, but he can’t help but feel some comfort in the fact it can’t be traced as easily back to him doing something so utterly ridiculous as being pushed this hard to make friends.
It’s not like he really knew how to, not with people at least; growing up homeschooled by a governess in the family penthouse will do that to you. Solidad practically adopted him out of what was likely pity and empathy when they met and Harley, May, and Max sort of annoyed each other into the others’ lives at first which works well enough when you’re younger, but isn’t as endearing as an adult. He knows he’s a rather competitive person and that was often a big point of connection before, but being a Judge now makes it a little harder to come by and he’s meant to not get involved with people participating in the circuit for bias purposes. It becomes utterly isolating when two of your friends won’t speak to you and the other two are just as busy, if not more, with work than you are. With that in mind, this whole deal might now be the worst thing in the world, but it’s not like he’d give Solidad the satisfaction.
Sealing the letter, he takes Flygon’s Pokémon out of his pocket and releases him, asking the Mystic Pokémon to deliver the correspondence to one of the Nurse Joy’s at the Center. With a happy chitter, Flygon accepts some scratches and Pokéblock as penance before taking the letter and soaring out of the balcony. Watching the Pokémon go, he catches Solidad beam out of the corner of her eye. “Not a word of this to Harley,” he grumbles, “I don’t need this to end up in next week’s issue.”
She waves him off with a hand as she sips the cocktail and turns on the TV so that they can watch the serial drama she and Harley are too utterly invested in when he gets off his call. “I’ve already told him to lay off your personal stuff for awhile. He agreed, unless Hoenn’s Prince and Princess reconnect, which is on-limits breaking news.”
“To him and me both,” Drew says with a sigh and a halfhearted toast of the mimosa, before taking a swig and curling into Solidad’s side. She comfortingly squeezes his shoulder and Masquerain lands on his head affectionately, which helps lull him into enough of a relaxed state that he might be able to forget the fact he sent that silly letter and get some much-needed sleep before his conference call later today. Arceus knows he’s in need of it.