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Florian took a deep breath in, puffing out his cheeks as he looked down at the hurricane on files and papers left on the Club Room table, running a hand down his face a moment later. He did not want to have to deal with this right now.
Leaning over the table on his palms he began contemplating fetching Kieran to come help, he wouldn’t enjoy sorting through his mess either, but at least he wouldn’t be doing it alone. But no— that solution wasn’t a good one. Sure he was sure he’d be willing to help, but it wasn’t fair on him.
No, he would track down the cause of this mess himself and drag him back by the ears if he had to, sit him down and force him to put in some effort for once in his Arceus forsaken life.
With one more sigh he pushed himself off the table, his hand back on his face as he hesitated for only a moment longer before gathering two of the other stacks of documents presented neatly on the table, going on and placing them by the computer for transcribing later. He would of course have to keep an eye out for any potential errors, that was part of his duties, but he was quite confident that if there even were any they’d be small enough to fix right there at the desk.
He left the other slightly less neatly stacked pile sitting adjacent from the unnatural disaster( did it smell like olive oil?) not as confident in its impeccableness, but at least there was an attempt put forwards.
Finally with nothing left to procrastinate with Florian gave one last grumble before he set off to his first destination— The Cafeteria. It wasn’t lunch time, and he should think of checking the Polar Biome first, but with the Club Room itself empty Florian was more confident in finding his target in the eatery than the Terarium.
—
“Drayton.” Florian called out flatly, finding him exactly where he had expected to. “Finish eating, I need you in the Club Room.”
Florian liked Drayton just fine as a person, in fact they got on pretty well for the most part. Keywords being the most part. He absolutely could not stand the older boy when it came to anything relating to the club administration. He would. Not. Do. Anything.
It was hard to believe that the club even ran back when Drayton was the Champion. Florian had a hard time straightening the club back up to something that didn’t resemble a boot camp from when Kieran had been in charge, he couldn’t even imagine the mess Kieran had to deal with when he had become champion. He had wondered on more than one occasion if the strict rules came not just from his overly training focused mind but instead from frustration of inheriting such a disorganised (presumably) system.
“Oh hey Champ.” Drayton replied lazily, a half smile forming on his face. “Here, try a fry. They’re really good and extra crispy today.”
“No thanks.” Florian spoke dryly just politely through half gritted teeth, pushing the extended hand away. His hand found his face again, pulling it down. He was going to get wrinkles in his 20s at this rate. “Just, try and finish, there’s some stuff I need you for in the Club Room.” He reiterated, hoping his point would get across this time but doubting it greatly.
And sure enough it did absolutely nothing to speed up Drayton’s leisurely eating.
“Something in the Club Room? Sounds important.”
Florian was a fool to get his hopes anywhere off the ground as they were immediately dashed by Drayton’s next words. “C’mon sit down, join me. Grab something to eat, we can make this an impromptu cafeteria date.”
Florian just scoffed as Drayton raised and lowered his eyebrows, sitting down regardless. “I am not going on a date with you Drayton, now or ever.” He did nothing to hide the truth of his statement, since he knew there wasn’t any truth in Drayton’s teasing. He did that with everyone— hell he had even said the Elite Four, the Champ, and the ‘ex-Champ’ were all going on a date with each other once. (Florian had found it funny at the time.)
“And for the record it is important, very important!” Even as he spoke sharply he moved to order something small off the cafeteria menu. Drayton always sat right infront of the cooks so he never even had to get up.
The BB League Club Leader ended up asking for something sweet, already preparing himself mentally for a lot of extra stress snacks.
Drayton whistled low and long, not caring at all about the attention it brought to the pair. “Wow… Important? So important you had to come to the Drayster himself for his help?” The Unovan boy had a smug look on his face, but then again he always did. Florian was never sure if it was on purpose or just the way his face sat. “I’m surprised you didn’t go to Lacey or Kieran for this one then.”
“Yeah well, I didn’t want to burden them with something that really shouldn’t be their problem.” Florian huffed as he shoveled a spoon of ice cream into his gob. They probably would’ve been more help though— Florian kept that thought to himself. Working with Drayton was like taking a negative stat buff in a video game, only there was no bonus, no extra stat points to put into something else. Just purely a debuff.
“How kind of you.” Drayton dragged one of his fries through Florian’s ice cream before popping it into his mouth. The Galarian boy gave him a glare but didn’t say anything. He didn’t really care but it was the principle of it— Florian was upset with him!– He could at least acknowledge it damn it!
Florian’s only response was to keep glaring while continuing to scoop ice cream into his mouth, chewing thoroughly on the occasional gummy worm. (He had gotten extra and it still wasn’t enough in his opinion.)
Finally— Finally after Florian had long since finished his ice cream (and a second one) Drayton tossed the last fry into his mouth, licking his fingers clean with a pop for each one.
The Dragon Tamer stood, stretching languidly like he didn’t have a care in the world, and like Florian wasn’t mere seconds away from decking him in the face. “Wow, that was some good food, as always huh Champ? I think I need to go take a little nap after that. Maybe Lacey will let me crash in the Coastal Biome.”
“Oh no.” Florian stood abruptly, “Oh, no no no no nooooo you don’t.”
Grabbing his arm and pulling him away, Florian's tone brooking no room for argument. “ You’re coming with me to the Club Room because there is important stuff that needs to be done if you want to stay a member of this club.”
“Geez, geez alright Kieran .” Drayton taunted with a smirk, half bent over from being dragged by the much shorter trainer. Florian could change his grip a little, give him more room to stand without looking like a folded lawn chair, but after that comment he wasn’t feeling so gracious.
They arrived at the door to the clubroom after what felt like far too long for Florian. He had eventually let go of his iron grip on Drayton’s arm, but only after he was sure he wasn’t gonna try and run away somehow, and in a rare moment of spite— only once he was sure Drayton was going to be feeling it in his back for a while.
“This—” Florian started while ushering the Elite Fourth member into the chair right infront of the disaster zone. “Is what you need to take care of.”
Drayton just stared down at the papers, Florian never could read his expression and that just made him get more frustrated as the seconds ticked by. Eventually the boy with hair that could only be described as a bit too reminiscent of toothpaste spoke. “Ooooh, I think I get it. There’s been a misunderstanding, all this stuff is alllll nice and ready for you to input into the computer so no worries at all.”
The second Drayton tried to stand Florian’s hands were on his shoulders shoving him right back down. “No they aren’t, Drayton! Don’t you dare try and get out of this, I’ve been putting up with this for far too long and now you’re gonna do something about it.”
Florian grabbed a handful of papers, from anywhere, it didn’t matter. “It’s bad enough that they’re organized about the same amount as a sack of rocks but Drayton, some of these aren’t even finished ” To exacerbate his point he pulled out a form with over half of the information missing on it, not to mention all the inaccuracies. “Hell, some of them are finished! Twice!! I’ve seen three of the same document before! And what in Arceus's name is this supposed to be?”
He yoinked a sheet from the table, presenting it all too close to Drayton’s face to the point the boy recoiled instinctively, it was absolutely covered in ink blots, scribbles and eraser marks, the writing that did make it on the paper was barely eligible. It wasn’t some kind of secret you were supposed to fill out a new sheet if it got this bad, and sadly it wasn’t the only document like that in the pile.
“Wow.”
Wow? Wow was the only word he got? Wow ? That was it, Florian was actually gonna deck him, he thought to himself.
Before he could go through with his act of violence that would probably have him outright expelled from this school, and maybe even Uva as well, Drayton continued.
“You’re scary when you’re angry.”
Florian couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, with the shit eating half smirk on his face and those stupid lazy eyes.
“Yeah well, you had better start doing your part or you’re gonna see me angry a lot more.” With that he slammed the paper he was clutching down on the table.
“I thought you said if I didn’t do it you were going to kick me out?”
“I— Well that!” Florian’s face turned an angry red as he stuttered, “Listen, just shut up you dummy! Get your work in order or else! Seriously Drayton it takes me a whole extra hour to finish this stuff, sometimes two!”
At that Florian swore he saw Drayton’s expression soften, dropping just a little bit— the slightest hints of falter. And of course, Florian, being Florian, sweet forgiving and understanding Florian, who he was currently hating himself for being right now, faltered in turn, feeling bad about yelling at Drayton so thoroughly. (Even if he deserved it without question.)
“Hey man I uh. I didn’t realise it made it that much harder on you, Champ.” For once in his life Drayton’s voice was sincere. “Guess I really screwed the Poochyena on this one huh?”
Florian just signed in response, pressing his hands together infront of his face and channeling all the power of all the saints in the world to give him calm. “Drayton, tell me what the hell is going on? Why is it always this bad?”
His voice was pointed but gentle as he slipped into the seat beside the Unovan boy, leaning over on his elbows. He only hoped he wasn’t being played again. He had his suspicions about it the first time it happened but he kept second guessing himself that maybe he wasn’t being played. In the end, yeah, he was kind of.
Drayton leaned back in the chair, holding his hands behind his chair as he looked at the ceiling. “I dunno, I guess. It’s just hard to keep track of it all you know. I didn’t realise I was giving you so much incomplete stuff and duplicates. Honest to Arceus you know I wouldn’t fill out things multiple times on purpose.”
Florian couldn’t help but smile. Yeah, guess that was right, he couldn’t imagine Drayton ever wanting to do something unless it was absolutely necessary, unless it was eating, sleeping or Pokemon battling of course.
“Why don’t you get some binders or something then.” Florian finally spoke up, starting to gather the papers up and handing half the stack to Drayton. “Y’know, have one for incomplete, one for complete, organize them by name or something.”
“Yeah, Lacey said I should do that as well.” The Dragon Tamer sighed with a smile as he started helping sort out the progress data. Crumpling up a repeat and flinging it across the room into the trash can. “And Amerys. Even Kieran at one point.”
“Then why haven’t you?” The question was asked innocently, a hint of genuine curiosity in his honey brown eyes.
“Don’t know, guess I’m just never at the store when I think about it. And when I am at the store? Never even crosses my mind.”
The room was silent other than the shuffling as paper as the two boys sorted through the mess, two clear piles becoming apparent over time.
“I’ll grab you a couple of binders next time I’m at the store.” Florian spoke as he tapped a new stack of papers on the table before adding it to one of the piles.
“For me?” Drayton seemed legitimately surprised about that. “You really don’t need to.”
“Yeah, but I want to. Even if I did want to deck you in the face earlier, you're still my friend, and if you’re struggling with something I want to help.”
“Hold up, you wanted to do what ?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Florian dismissed it quickly with a wave of his hand and a smirk, his chair scraping across the floor as he stood, papers clutched in his other. “I’m going to go start inputting what I can.”
“Please, Drayton.” He said, presenting the stack of papers to the still sitting boy. “Try and have these all filled out and back to me before tomorrow night?” He was stuck between wanting to have faith in his friend and being burned one too many times before, but he was willing to believe those burns may have been accidental– well, the really serious ones anyway.
Drayton just stared at the documents for a good long minute before grinning right back, “Yeah. Yeah I’ll get this back to you, no problem, Champ.”
“Thanks Drayton. I’ll get you those binders tomorrow.” With a brisk nod Florian took the remaining, usable papers off of the table, along with the slightly messy stack across from it (oh, that was definitely olive oil) and headed off towards the club room’s computer.
“Oh!”
He turned suddenly, having thought of something that had been bothering him. “Okay, I get the disorganization about the missing information and duplicates and stuff, but why does it always look like a Tornadus went through your pile?”
“Oh that? I just do that to mess with you.” With that Drayton was already on his way out of the room before Florian had time to fully process. “I’m gonna go hunt some of these guys down, I’ll see you later, Champ.”
And just like that he was gone, and just like that Florian was left groaning in annoyance again, although the slightest hint of a smile was playing on his face as he reached for the keyboard.