In From the Rain

I found this fic fragment that I wrote back when I was just getting into Pokemon, and it still holds up pretty well. The idea is cute, but I don’t remember where I was going with it…maybe I’ll continue it if anyone is interested. Let me know in the comments what you think!

——

The door to Raihan’s flat buzzes at around eleven-thirty, maybe midnight.

He isn’t quite sure of the time; it’s late, and he was watching old tournament videos with the sound on low, finding an odd sort of comfort in the tiny figures dancing past on screen, even though he’s seen this footage a hundred times before. It’s raining, too, the sound a lulling buzz on his windowpanes that makes the entire room feel cozy and snug. He’s almost irritated at the sound of the doorbell, but goes out into the hall with a huff and presses the intercom button.

“Hey—Raihan? It’s Piers, can you let me up for a second?” The voice crackles a little as it comes through the speakers, and Raihan blinks, wondering if he’s already dreaming. What reason would Piers have to be visiting at this hour? There’s something shivery in his voice too, as though he’s almost uncertain of himself, and Raihan has to shake himself out of preemptive worry before pressing the button to unlock the door.

A few minutes later, Piers is standing on his doorstep, looking unfairly beautiful for someone drenched to the bone and clearly fresh from a club or something. In his arms, a half-sodden cardboard box is clutched tight, his skinny shoulders hunched over like he’s trying to protect it.

“Uh…” Raihan isn’t even really sure where to start with this. There are literally so many questions he doesn’t know which one to voice first. Piers’ deep, drooping eyes look up at him and his cheeks are faintly flushed, black and white tendrils of his long hair plastered to his neck with rainwater. A single droplet rolls down his nose and vanishes, and the box shivers slightly.

“Shit...sorry, Raihan, I know ‘s late man. You just...you gotta help me,” Piers mumbles, sounding somewhere between drunk and shy. Raihan doesn’t know what to make of this, and then the box shivers weakly and lets out a pathetic mewl.

“Mate, what’s in the box?” Moving out of the way he gestures for Piers to come in, watching him stumble out of his immense platformed creepers and then settle onto the floor in his stripe-socked feet. There’s something strangely endearing about the way his toes twitch now that he’s on solid ground, and then he makes a beeline for the couch, setting the box down gently.

Piers gives Raihan another searching, almost pleading look, and Raihan closes the door on the empty hallway. “S’...just a favor. Just for a little bit. Please, I couldn’t just leave ‘er.”

Before Raihan can ask who her is, the box shakes again and Piers opens the lid with careful fingers, and lifts out a tiny, rose-pink Skitty.

Raihan blinks. He’s had about a half-dozen fantasies at this point about having Piers in his apartment, especially with his eyeliner smudged and his hair down, but approximately zero of them have ever featured a Skitty. “Oi, where’d you get that?”

Piers gathers the tiny body up against his chest like he’s trying to keep the kitten warm with his own heat, and given the obvious drenching of both of them, he probably is. “I only came to Hammerlocke ‘cause my friend said there was this absolutely legendary DJ I just had to see play at a club ‘round here. It was good and all but when we were comin’ out, I heard this little tiny voice mewing away out in the alley somewhere, and my mate told me to leave it but I couldn’t, and...she was just there. In the trash, like somebody threw her out.” It’s the sort of drunken ramble of a story that Piers takes a moment to tell, but by the end he sounds so utterly heartbroken that Raihan takes a step closer, just as a flash of lightning illuminates the room. Piers jumps, the Skitty sinking her claws into the front of his admittedly paper-thin shirt, but he hardly seems to notice or mind as the thunder rumbles in the background.

“I can’t take her home, ‘cause my Obbie is sick and I’ve been keeping ‘im out with me and I don’t want ‘im getting any ideas about where his next dinner is gonna be...and all the shelters are closed at this hour.”

Piers doesn’t post a lot of his lifestyle on social media, but Raihan has seen a few glimpses of his flat, and it barely seems big enough for him and Marnie, much less an Obstagoon and a Skitty to boot. He’s always wondered why Piers never got a bigger and better place, but as he’s come to know him, Raihan has learned it’s just not in Piers’ nature to ask for things.

Which is why it’s so stunning that he’s here now, with a Skitty in his arms who seems to have settled enough from her fright to start chewing the ends of his hair. The look in his eyes is utterly pleading, and Raihan figures out where all of this is going.

“So you want me to keep her?”

Piers nods quietly, shifting his weight back and forth from one leg to the other. “Just for a day or two, until the vet opens and I can get ‘er looked at for a chip, or the shelter if they can’t find one.”

Raihan is not a Skitty type of guy. He is a dragon trainer, thank you very much. If it’s not big, scaly, and potentially breathing fire, he’s never had much of an interest in it, and he’s been that way all his life. Skittys are hardly even fighting Pokemon, and most people who have one just treat them like expensive pets instead. The kind of thing you expect to see being oohed and aahed over on a rich person’s social media feed, bedecked in a diamond collar and sleeping on a silk pillow in a life better than most human beings have. Raihan doesn’t do that kind of thing, and he definitely doesn’t know how to care for something so small and...fragile.

But what’s he going to do, say no? He’s almost certain that Piers walked here, in the rain, holding his precious cargo and hoping not to get mugged. Not that Raihan lives in a bad part of town, but still. The Skitty’s large tail is soaked in mud, the normally bright pom-poms at the end dark and grimy. The two of them make the world’s saddest picture, and Raihan sighs, running a hand over the back of his neck.

“I don’t have anything for a Skitty. Don’t even know the first thing about taking care of one.” Piers’ face softens, like years are lifting off him, and there’s a shy quirk of his lips that might even be the lead-up to a smile. Raihan tries not to let his heart beat too loudly, and instead holds up a hand. “Wait. Least I can do is get you two some towels.” Like an idiot, he just goes into the bathroom and grabs one of the ones hanging on the towel rack, even though there’s a whole linen closet full of them down the other side of the hall. But when he comes back out, Piers is nestled into his couch, the pink ball of fluff curled in his lap as he pets her with pale, black-tipped fingers.

Handing over the towel, he can’t help but peer down to see the narrow eyes and a tiny flash of pink tongue as the Skitty begins to wash herself off. “So...what’s her name? I know she doesn’t have a collar ‘n all, but I gotta call her something.”

Piers ponders on this question for a moment, a furrow developing between his neatly manicured brows. “What about...Guinevere?” Picking up the towel, he rubs at her head for a few moments, then wraps it around the sodden mass of his own hair.

The name fits, and Raihan nods. “Yeah, seems about right. A perfect name for a perfect princess,” he teases, and then goes off to find his phone. The least he can do is see if there’s a corner store or something open nearby that will deliver something a Skitty can eat, and maybe some litter too, if they’re lucky. Fortunately, it turns out that there’s a 24-7 place two blocks up, and he praises the infinite virtues of late-night delivery drivers while giving the heftiest tip the app will allow.

This time when he returns to the living room, Piers is standing again, his jacket tossed over the back of the couch and the pale curve of his neck visible in the low light as he towels himself off again. Guinevere is watching him from the couch, still bathing herself by licking one paw and rubbing it over her broad ears again and again. Raihan tries not to let himself be distracted by that bared neck, because now is really not the time, and instead coughs and moves around to flick on a light. “I just ordered some stuff online for her. It’s a good thing that delivery runs all night. And...are we sure it’s a her?” As far as he knows, all Skittys are pink like this, and while the name certainly suits, he’d at least like to know for future reference.

Piers turns to face him, long limbs gone loose with drink. He shrugs his coat back on in a languid motion, and pushes his damp hair back over the collar. “Oh—male Skittys have two tail puffs, females have three. So she’s definitely a girl,” he murmurs, turning around to give Guinevere a quick rub on her ears.

“I gotta get goin’, Raihan, it’s real late and I still have volunteer stuff tomorrow. Thank you a million times for doin’ this, though. I mean it. Thank you…” he says as he collects his shoes and clambers up into them. He’s still soaked to the skin, and the thin black tank top he’s been wearing clings to his body in a way that shouldn’t be so tempting. He looks like a slightly drunken angel, but even as he puts his hand on the doorknob, Raihan feels a gap between them he has no idea how to cross. As though Piers is always doing this, always on the verge of slipping from his grasp. A phantom he can never quite catch.

The door is open and Piers is out in the hall before he notices the umbrella hanging on the series of hooks beside the door, and practically jumps to the doorstep to offer it to him. “Oi, Piers. It’s coming down like buckets out there, take this with you. Are you sure I can’t call you a CorviCab?”

Piers’ blue eyes go wide and he blinks at the umbrella like he’s never seen one before, but then slowly reaches up and takes it. Then he looks at Raihan, and oh Arceus, the smile he gives is tender and slight and goes right for the knees. “Thanks, Rai...and nah, I got it. I’m an expert at getting home, even when I’m shitfaced, and I’m definitely not shitfaced now. A walk’ll sober me up for sure.” Raihan wants to ask how the hell Piers plans to walk from Hammerlocke to Spikemuth, but Piers is already halfway down the stairs, humming to himself and swaying slightly as he goes. The question dies on his lips, and he resolves to text him in an hour or two to make sure he got home safely. If not, he’ll go out in the damn rain and look for Piers himself.

When he closes the door, there’s a faint scrabbling sound from inside the apartment and Raihan remembers that he’s not alone. Though he isn’t sure how he could have forgotten, given that the idea of a Skitty being in his apartment is so bizarre he wonders if pink Cufants are about to come out for a song and dance number too. Walking back into the living room, he expects to see the little bundle of rosy fur and thin green eyes peering up at him from his couch, but Guinevere is nowhere to be seen. He checks underneath the couch, and looks up and down the hallway, but the kitten has made herself completely scarce. Probably scared half to death, the poor thing. Though she’d seemed to get along with Piers well enough.

The damp towel is still on the couch though, and Raihan picks it up. Maybe he even holds it for an extra moment before tossing it into the laundry hamper in his bedroom, because it smells like Piers’ cologne and cigarettes, and if it weren’t for the cool feeling of it in his hands, he might not believe the past hour had happened at all. Then he thinks about that shy smile of gratitude, and flops on his bed to breathe.

Somewhere in the house, a tiny body breathes with him.

——

Guinevere stays disappeared for most of the first day and it’s only the fact that the food continues to disappear and the litter box is used a few times that keeps Raihan from worrying too much that she somehow slipped out of the apartment and ran off again. It’s a bit strange, knowing there’s something else living in his flat that he almost never sees, but he supposes that it’s better than her making noise or a huge mess.

When he gets home from the gym around seven, he flicks on the light and finds her standing near the water bowl, and they both freeze on instinct. Him, more because he’s surprised that she’s shown herself, and her, because she’s been caught and whatever distrust she has towards him builds up until her tiny body puffs with rage. All at once, her tail becomes an immense bottle-brush, the puffs at the end standing straight up, and she lets out the most outraged hiss he’s ever heard in his life. Fully grown Charizards would cower from such a sound.

There’s another moment of pause, and then Raihan laughs so loudly he startles even himself. Guinevere races from the room to find something to hide under, but he can’t stop the peals of laughter bursting out of his chest. He hasn’t laughed this hard in ages, not genuinely, but something about the petite Skitty puffing up and hissing at something ten times her own size is both endearing and wildly hilarious to him.

And it happens to remind him of a certain someone he knows who doesn’t like backing down, nor fearing something much larger than he is.

Raihan flops on the couch once he’s put his gear away, and opens his phone to look up toys that a Skitty might like to play with. Maybe it’s time he showed Guinevere that he’s not such a bad guy after all, by getting on her level rather than expecting her to get on his.