Chapter Text
Thirty days are agony. And just because Solidad reminded him that not seeing May for thirty days was routine a year ago in Kanto, doesn’t mean she’s right. Things are different, now, okay? He gets it. She’s spending a lot of time up Mount Coronet and she has awful service, but that’s the problem. May can fend for herself, there’s no question about that, but what if she ends up running out of food? Or gets caught out in the snow at night and isn’t able to get back to the Pokémon Center? He doesn’t want to imagine it. So he won’t, and connects to the second number in his speed dial.
“Hey Solidad!” He says with an uncharacteristic amount of excitement, “How’s Len Town? Did Harley catch another ghost type or did he get possessed again?"
“Drew,” Kanto’s Top Coordinator says, tiredly. Okay, so Harley definitely got possessed again. Before he can go to comment on it, she takes a deep breath and states, “I love you, but I swear to Arceus if this is about May again—”
If she happened to come up in conversation —as she often did— it’d be fine. Well, it was not not about May. Trying to retort, he reasons, “Solidad, look—”
“Hanging up now,” she declares, while a devilish high-pitched laugh rings in the background, before the line cuts out. With a groan, he flops back down onto his bed in Palmpona’s Pokémon Center. He debates calling the third number on his speed dial, but the laugh echoing in his head deters him. So maybe he’d called Solidad some— well, most days since May left for Johto, but he can’t help it. He’s off his game, he’s upset, and he would appreciate his all but in legality adoptive older sister to pay attention to him. Just because she’s got a best friend, or partner, or whatever the Ho-Oh Harley is, and they are off ghost hunting or something together, doesn’t mean she should be “unavailable.”
Things had been off for a few weeks now, adjusting to the change that was traveling with May, only to have to quickly readjust back to not traveling with her was not helping his homeostasis at all. May also left right after Roselia evolved into a Roserade, whom he had thought would evolve roughly halfway into this season—which he was planning for— but apparently the time that was right for her. It was not, however, the most ideal time for him, given the way his Contest Schedule was stacking up, so he was faced with a slew of new Contests, without the two of them having adjusted to old combinations in her new form and the new ones that came with her new moves. While he’d been doing great earlier this season, managing to beat out Solidad, Harley, and May for some ribbons, he could not catch a break at these last two Contests. As much as he wants to think its because he slipped up or Roserade wasn’t ready, he knows a major part of the why is not having May here to anchor him amidst this chaotic slew of changes. Especially given Solidad and Harley started being more annoyingly in sync than usual and he’s not sure what is going on, but it is making him feel like a third-wheel. Constantly. So sue him if the whole world is changing under his feet and he would very much like it to not right now.
When he was feeling unmoored like this May would usually help ground him, but between the time differences and May’s poor service up in the mountains, they haven’t been able to talk as much as he’d have liked. May was awful at texting, which was part of the problem, in that she reads your message and then forgets it exists for two weeks because the notification went away and she didn’t respond in the moment way. So there was a lot of asynchronous well wishes for contests or for traveling to new places, she’d send him a few photos of the places she’d explore she knew he’d enjoy and he’d snap photos of meals at all the restaurants they had to hit when she got back or ridiculous candids of Harley and Solidad when they were traveling together. His favorite photo is a selfie of her lying in a field of colorful flowers, making a peace sign to the camera and the accompanying “Wish you were here <3” message from Floaroma town.. He made the mistake of making it the background image of his Pokéch, which led to a slew of Roserade’s teasing that was only stopped when he made it less prominent. He sent a similar photo in return from Cherrygrove City’s shoreline, thankfully before he lost a contest, badly.
As he all but dissociates from the bed as his gaze follows the flapping of Masquerain and Butterfree’s wings, he feels a light jab in his side from Roserade who looks displeased with his antics. She was trying to take May being gone better than he was —and she was— but he knows she misses her too. He raises an eyebrow at her, unsure what she wants, until she shoots a single Magical Leaf at his phone, switching to the next number on his speed dial.
“Roserade, I’m not calling Max.”
She chastises him
“He gave me his number for emergencies,” he tries to argue, but she gives him a sassy look that all but states that this is an emergency. It isn’t. Emergencies are when May’s Pokénav is dead, all your Pokémon are exhausted, and you are caught in the middle of Ilex Forrest with a map destroyed by the rain so you need the boy genius to get you out of this mess. Not emotional breakdowns. Still, Roserade refuses to let it go and will be in a mood for the rest of the evening if he doesn’t, so he dials May’s brother with a groan.
On the third ring, a slightly irritated nasally voice cuts straight to the point. “Drew. What do you want? It’s so early.”
Shit. If it’s almost midnight in the morning here it must be… around five in Hoenn. Beating himself up for forgetting, he apologizes, “Arceus, I forgot the time difference over there.”
“Well, now you remembered it, genius,” Max chides. Drew hears the boy take a deep breath in and let out a heavy sigh, which makes the Coordinator want to embarrassingly hang-up and pretend this never happened. However, it seems as if he's re-centered himself because Max is less on edge when he asks, “What’s up? Wait. Is May okay? I thought she was in Sinnoh?”
“No… she still is,” Drew trails off. Arceus. This is so stupid.
When Max interrogates, “Then, why are you calling me?” Drew begins spiraling and taking this as more evidence that he really only should open up to Solidad. He was right. It’s not an emergency and he’s just being needy, and annoying.
Considering he’s never going to live this down anyway, he might as well be honest when he’s digging his own grave. Despondently, he replies, “Roserade is forcing me.”
“Don’t sound so excited,” Max snarks sarcastically, which earns him a small, self-deprecating chuckle from the Coordinator on the other side of the line. “Couldn’t you have called Solidad?”
“Trust me, I tried,” Drew replies tiredly, his gaze tracing the shapes of the ceiling lights. His eyes flit like a Mothim to the flame, moving from lightbulb to lightbulb in a grounding manner.
He almost gets completely lost in them, but Max’s voice cuts through the silence and straight to the core of the situation. “Is this all because you miss my sister?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Drew mumbles under his breath, feeling as if he’s the younger of the two parties on this phone call.
“Join the club,” Max states matter-of-factly, which Drew finds annoying as it is affirming.
Drew hazards a “Have you talked to her recently?” to try and smooth over the conversation a bit more and make it less awkward if he can, which he hasn’t exactly aced so far.
“Yeah! We talked yesterday; she told me all about her new… well, you’ll see,” Max says with a smug grin, which Drew knows must mean that Max knows whatever surprise Pokémon his sister has in store for the Wallace Cup. With a knowing, but nasally voice, Max adds, “But she’s heading to Lake Valor soon, so she should have more service soon so you can be annoyingly affectionate.”
“Is it that obvious?” Drew resignedly sighs, realizing how fast and easy he is to see through both when he’s trying to get information about May and his feelings about her. At least he’s got a better gauge of things now and might be able to reach her soon, even if he has to embarrass himself to make it happen.
“For years, Drew,” Max says sharply, and Drew can practically hear the annoyance in the younger boy’s voice. Before Drew can say anything, however, Max softly and encouragingly adds, “But, it’s okay. She misses you too, you weenie.”
Drew is quiet on line for a little too long, so Roserade hits him lightly with her bouquet. She quietly chirps at him to shift the conversation to how Max is. The coaching feels a tad condescending, but is depressingly helpful given how little he enjoys interacting with kids. He awkwardly questions, “How have you been, Max?”
“So now you’re interested,” Max chastises, rolling his eyes. “You’re insufferable, you know that?” When Drew gives him an exaggerated shrug back, the younger boy smiles and continues, “But things are good! I’ve been helping dad with the gym and Professor Birch around the lab—Oh! Did May tell you I caught Ralts?”
“Wait? The sick one? From Izabe Island?” Drew asks, hazarding a guess based on a conversation the two of them had when riding back to Hoenn with May. Apparently, both of them had the same idea of wanting to recoup a bit before the Johto journey and accidentally ended up on the same boat back, where Max ended up with the worst food poisoning. He and May took turns watching over him in his cabin, so in true Maple fashion, Max told him the full, meandering, animated tale of his encounter with Ralts when they were passing the time, which he thinks this is, if he isn’t confusing it with one of the other dozens of Pokémon Max befriended.
“Yeah! You remembered!?” Max exclaims happily as Drew thanks his lucky stars he locked in and listened. He was a bit annoyed then —given he would have preferred spending more time with May and less time babysitting her sick brother— but, it is earning him points with the judgmental preteen now, and he’ll take all he can get. Max continues to excitedly divulge, “Mom and dad let us go back for my birthday! I brought him some frozen berries again and everything, and he found me!”
Roserade gestures for him to continue asking questions to continue showing interest in May’s younger brother, so Drew asks, “Is he your first Pokémon?”
“He is!” he rambles excitedly with a familiar penchant for storytelling. “My parents didn’t think I was ready, but Professor Birch convinced them to let me at least catch Ralts before I start my journey.”
Without needing the reminder from Roserade, Drew asks, “How is he adjusting to Petalburg?”
“He seems to like it; he misses the ocean sometimes —having grown up on an island and all, obviously— so we spend a lot more time on the beach than I’d like to. He’s also annoyingly good at finding me when we’re playing hide and seek though, ‘cause he can sense me telepathically after all.” The way Max tells stories feels so reminiscent of his sister that he must have laughed unconsciously because the boy genius hits him with a, “What’s so funny?”
“You’re just so excited when you talk about him, it reminds me—”
“Of May. I know. Ralts can too. He can sense your gross longing through the phone,” Max complains. Even if the boy is teasing him, this was actually kind of nice and less difficult than he thought, even if Roserade had to coach him through it a bit. It reminds him of how this sort of phone call with Solidad usually goes, but with an annoying little brother instead of an equally annoying older sister.
“Very funny,” Drew says dryly, which he gets a smirk on the other side of the line from Max for. “Are you planning on starting your journey in Hoenn?”
“I’m debating,” Max states ambivalently. “Technically, I probably should start here, but mom and dad don’t want me on my own… so I might come to Johto and tag along with May and the rest of you guys.”
What.
Drew tries not to sound as rattled as he feels when he asks, with his voice deciding to be almost an octave louder than usual, “And when were you and your dear sister going to inform us of all of this?”
“Now I guess? Surprise!?” Max exclaims with a mix of sheepishness, mischievousness, and excitement, before he must have checked the time. Then, he immediately shifts to say, “Arceus, I’m late to morning training. I’ve got to go!” without, you know, giving Drew the time to actually process that first thing about Max starting his journey in Johto. He continues, “But nice talking and all, Drew. And you’re on the other side of it, my sister should be back next weekend! Missing her doesn’t get easier though, just saying.”
“I appreciate the tip,” Drew says, with sincerity, instead of his usual sarcasm. At least he knows he’s not being utterly irrational about this whole thing if her brother, who hasn’t seen May for longer than he has, is missing her as well. He adds, “And, yeah…thanks for listening, Max, and I guess, see you soon? Maybe?”
“Bye! Say hi to Roserade for me in the meantime!” Max chirps before quickly hanging up as he scurries off to wherever he’s going to train with.
Once Max hangs up the phone, Drew hears Roserade chirp to get his attention, to which he gives her a lovingly annoyed glare. He concedes, “Okay, fine. Calling Max was a little helpful,” before taking a look into the traditional badge route for Johto and when the next Violet City Contest as he winds down for the evening. If he isn’t going to be able to sleep and if Max is going to be here soon, he might as well be prepared.