Chapter 0 - layla

Lyra has never done anything like this before in her life. It seems like, ever since she left home, she just keeps finding herself in situations that she never would have imagined for herself, but this seems on another level entirely, somehow. Deciding to challenge all the gyms to see where it will get her? Alright. Getting roped into helping a town out by fighting against the remnants of a notorious criminal organization? Sure.

But hooking up with a stranger seems like a different matter entirely, and entirely the sort of matter that the girl who left New Bark Town would surely never involve herself in. Yet here she is, proving that she isn’t exactly the same girl who left New Bark Town, or maybe she is, and maybe that girl has always been like this, and nobody ever had the chance to notice. Maybe she never even had the chance to notice, but she sure is noticing now.

Petrel is nice enough, in the overly friendly sort of way that she knows means he wants more than just polite conversation. And that’s what makes him perfect for tonight, because she isn’t after polite conversation either, and as she lets him lead her back to the room he has for tonight, she steels herself. This is what she wants- the quick fuck with a stranger, just to get it over with and out of the way, just to say that she’s finally done it. The fact that he has an actual hotel room, a luxury that she has rarely been able to afford on her journey, only helps matters. Even if the sex turns out to be not all it was cracked up to be, she should at least have a nice place to sleep for the night.

He doesn’t waste much time, once he has her alone, and she likes that. She likes that he doesn’t hesitate, and that he hasn’t hesitated from the beginning, not when she awkwardly approached him, not sure how she should approach him to begin with, not even when he asked her old she was, and she stumbled over an excuse that wasn’t an answer. Something tells her that he doesn’t seem to mind that the answer is old enough to leave home for months on end, but apparently too young to know what she wants from a man. 

“Cute,” is all he says, once he has her dress out of the way, noticing the cutesy pattern on her panties that she worries he might find too childish. She didn’t go out in her usual outfit, and even wore her hair down, trying to appear a little bit older, but she didn’t think the underwear thing through. Not that Petrel seems to care one way or the other, as he reaches to unclasp her bra first, going for her panties second.

He still hasn’t made a move to undress himself- nice jeans, a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up- and she feels weird about being the only one naked. She feels weirder about that than she does the simple fact that a stranger is staring at her naked body, and she wonders if that is a part of growing up. Petrel is dressed rather nice, she thinks, a bit nicer than the rest of his appearance might suggest, but she likes the contrast that creates. She likes a lot of things about him, but most of all, she likes that he is just as sleazy as he looks. He must be, if he’s willing to do this without a hint of hesitation.

“You’re so cute, Lyra,” he continues, as he cups one of her small breasts in his hands. “Seriously, what’s a cutie like you doing, being desperate enough to come home with a guy like me?”

“Maybe I just like guys like you,” she replies, surprised at how playful her voice comes out, surprised that she is able to find her voice at all. This comes so naturally to her, despite the part of her brain reminding her that she’s never done this before, that this isn’t the type of thing that girls like her do.

Girls like her don’t approach sleazy looking older men and follow them to their hotel rooms; girls like her stay up late emailing Ethan about whatever funny thing his Marill has done that day, whatever weird thing the professor said, and how much they can’t wait to get out of the house once and for all. But now that she is out of the house, this is what she’s chosen for herself, and she goes through the motions as if she has been hooking up with strangers all her life.

“Then you have incredibly bad taste,” Petrel teases her, before leaning down to kiss her, his hand still groping her, or at least, trying to, but she doesn’t have much to grope. This isn’t even a sign of her youth anymore, because she’s fairly certain she’s done growing, and what she has is all she’s ever going to have.

It isn’t the first time he’s kissed her. He kissed her a few times earlier, while she tried to flirt with him, perhaps his way of letting her know that it was working. He kissed her when she agreed to come with him, just before taking her hand and smirking, promising he would show her the way. The first time was her first overall, but she’s getting very used to it now, and thinks that she might even be getting good at it, if the way he moans into her mouth whenever she responds is any indication. Honestly, she isn’t sure if Petrel is actually good at it or not. He’s very sloppy, but that could just be his eagerness getting the better of him.

Lyra is feeling pretty eager herself, her nerves at the back of her mind as he moves his other hand down her back, teasing her with the light touches of his fingertips. Her body responds to each of his touches, the sensations reminding her of late nights not spent emailing Ethan, but rather, tangled up in her bed, trying to make sense of what she was feeling and why she suddenly felt this way, and what she should do to put a stop to this feeling once and for all, while also ensuring that this absolutely never ended. And, sometimes, this coincided with emailing Ethan, and she would always wonder, briefly, if she should let him in on this, but she never did.

She has wanted this for a very long time, and now, she wishes that Petrel’s light touches would drop lower, and again, she is reminded of those late nights, her own hand between her legs as she wondered what would happen if she did tell Ethan what she was doing, and what it might feel like to let him do it instead. That feels like centuries ago, a different time, when she would entertain the idea of doing this with her neighbor , when all along, there were men like Petrel to do this with.

Petrel doesn’t actually touch her until he’s done kissing her, when he tells her to go ahead and sit down or lay down, while he finishes getting undressed. Lyra sits on the edge of the bed, kicking her heels against the side of it, not sure if she should watch him or if she should pretend to be disinterested. Even if he already knows that she has never done anything like this before, won’t he be more impressed if she is able to handle the situation like this is something she’s done a million times before?

But any pretense of not caring vanishes as soon as he begins unbuttoning his shirt, and she can’t help but watch him as he takes it slowly, one button at a time. His body is nothing impressive; she supposes he would be considered average, a bit soft around the middle, and overall, decent to look at. He shrugs his shirt off, letting it hit the floor as he goes for his pants, and Lyra swallows hard, noticing, not for the first time, the bulge in his jeans.

The first time was during their first kiss, when he pulled her so close she couldn’t help but feel it, and at that point, she knew that she would, for better or worse, get what she was after tonight. She doesn’t want to stare at him as he finishes stripping, but he catches her gaze and gives her a grin that tells her he already knows she’s staring, and since she’s caught, there’s no point in holding back anymore.

Really, she isn’t sure what she’s supposed to think now. If she’s supposed to be overwhelmed or impressed, she isn’t. He’s still just Petrel, but without clothes this time, and this revelation feels somehow stranger than the revelation that she doesn’t mind being undressed in front of him. Though she doesn’t know what she was expecting to feel, she isn’t sure if it is supposed to feel this... normal .

He comes to sit beside her, and leans over to kiss her again, one of his hands finding one of her breasts again, almost immediately. This time, instead of clumsily groping at her, he absentmindedly plays with one of her nipples, and startles her as he drops his other hand between her legs. On reflex, she spreads them for him, and feels as though she could jump out of her skin when he actually begins to touch her. She whimpers into their kiss, and he chuckles in response, no doubt amused by her dramatic reaction to something so little.

Pulling back, he presses his forehead to hers, grinning as he says, “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll make it feel real good.”

And he does.

Lyra has spent hours on end trying to get it just right, always feeling as though she were reaching for just a little more than what she was able to get, and now, just like that, she feels like she gets it . Or rather, like Petrel already got it, and now he’s sharing it with her, because she was too stupid to figure it out on her own. Whatever the case, his promise almost feels like an understatement. For a few moments, Lyra loses her mind entirely, unable to register her surroundings, nearly forgetting her own name as he uses his fingers in ways that she thought she already knew, but feel entirely different when coming from him.

She isn’t even aware of how she cries out for him, until she hears her own voice, loud and shameless, and stops suddenly, brought back to reality by her shame. Petrel is grinning at her, looking so damn smug, but she supposes he has a right to be. He says, “See, that was good. I can do even better, you know.”

Part of her hopes that he can, while another part of her isn’t sure if she can take much more of that, not without completely losing her mind to pleasure. All she does is nod, even though he didn’t ask her a question, and he pushes her down, onto her back so that he can climb on top of her. Now comes the part she was the most worried about, leading up to this, but in the moment, all she can think about is how much she wants to go ahead and do it already. Petrel, at least, has no intention of holding back anymore, and he pins her wrists as he pushes inside of her.

The actual act of fucking him is not particularly remarkable, at least not at first, and not compared to what he is able to do with his hands. At first, it hurts a bit, even though he says he’s going to be so gentle that it won’t hurt a bit. She doesn’t want him to know that it hurts, because she partially worries that the pain might be her own fault. For all she knows, he is doing everything he can to make sure that this isn’t painful for her, and she’s doing something wrong, because of her inexperience.

Whether it is because he doesn’t actually know how to ensure it doesn’t hurt at all, or whether she’s doing something wrong, she still doesn’t want him to know that it hurts, because she doesn’t want him to stop. So she lays back as he fucks her, trying to relax and wait it out, until it’s over, or until it starts to feel that good again. Even though she doesn’t come this time, Petrel seems to enjoy himself quite a bit as he grunts on top of her, and once she starts to get used to it, she can admit that it isn’t so bad.

After he finishes, he pulls her close and he quickly falls asleep, and Lyra allows herself to drift off not long after. It’s great to be able to sleep in a real bed again, even if she’s sharing it with a man that she hardly knows. In fact, she finds that sharing it with Petrel isn’t that bad at all.

~X~

In the morning, Petrel fucks her again first thing, and this time, she likes it quite a bit more than the night before. In fact, she likes it about as much as when he just touched her, and this time, she starts to understand what the big deal is all about. She wouldn’t mind staying like this a little longer, but eventually, he says that he needs to get going, for work related things, and she admits that she should head out anyway.

“I need to challenge the gym today,” she mumbles.

“Oh, is that what you’re in Goldenrod for?” he asks. “Here I thought it was just to meet me.”

Lyra laughs, and replies, “You’re just here for work?”

“Or maybe I was just here to meet you, who knows?” he teases. “Nah, we’ve got a big thing coming up, and I’m just here to make sure everything is coming together the way it should before I head back to my main post.” He yawns and stretches before getting up, and Lyra watches as he goes to get dressed.

There’s a bag she didn’t really notice the night before, too distracted by everything else, but it makes sense for him to have his stuff here with him, since he had this room booked before he even met her. He pulls out an outfit to change into before shoving his discarded clothes from the night before into his bag, and Lyra watches as he gets dressed.

Lyra watches as Petrel puts on a full Team Rocket uniform, and returns to sit on the edge of the bed while he pulls on his boots. They’d looked out of place with his outfit the night before, but they perfectly match his uniform, and the weight of what she has done hits her all at once.

“Are you ready to get up or what?” he asks. “I thought you said you had to get to the gym. You can sleep in if you want, I guess, but you’ll have to check out on time for me, alright?”

“No, I’m...I’m getting up,” she says, and she sits up as she says it. As long as she plays it cool, then he doesn’t have to know who she really is, or why she knows what his uniform signifies. It’s not like she meant to get involved with that executive’s- Proton’s- plans at the Slowpoke well, and it’s not like she means to keep making an enemy out of Team Rocket. Petrel doesn’t know what she’s done, and he doesn’t have to.

Quietly, she gets up to fetch her own bag, packing away the dress she wore the night before. This morning, it looks exactly like what it is- just some dress her mom bought for her and insisted she pack if she needed to wear something “nice.” Really, it’s no more mature than anything else she has, and she’s surprised that Petrel could even pretend to fall for her act the night before.

In the moment, when she was getting dressed, it felt different, but this morning, she’s glad to return to her comfortable overalls, and her oversized hat. She doesn’t waste time tying her hair in pigtails, deciding that can wait until later, but as she puts her hat on, preparing to take her bag and say goodbye, she notices Petrel staring at her. The way his face shifts from confusion to recognition tells her that playing it cool was not enough to get her out of this situation.

“So, you weren’t going to mention you already knew Team Rocket, huh, Lyra?” he asks, his tone casual. He doesn’t make any move, not to get closer to her or to block the store, simply remaining where he stands while he waits for her response.

“You never mentioned you were a part of it,” she replies, her voice so quiet that it is hardly audible.

“It was you, then? The hat’s not much to go off of, I know, but Proton kept going on about this kid in a hat, about your age, probably,” Petrel says. “A trainer, just passing through on her way to the second gym. And now, here you are, about her age, on your way to the third gym, with that hat...he mentioned overalls, too, you know.”

“You know him, huh?”

“He’s something, isn’t he? But, yeah, I know him. We’re both executives.” She must look surprised, because he laughs as he says, “Yeah, you had no idea you fucked someone so important, I bet.”

Lyra has no idea what she should say to him now, so she looks down, then back up at him. Petrel waits until he realizes that she isn’t going to say anything else, and continues on his own. “The big question is, what are we gonna do now? See, I’m a professional, and I tend to not let my work life and my private life get tangled up. As far as I’m concerned, that business between you and Proton, and what we did last night, are entirely unrelated. Just as long as it stays between you and Proton, and as long as you keep your nose out of our business from now on.”

Everything he says, he says in a friendly tone, but there is no masking the hint of a threat. She nods, and he smiles, saying, “See? I knew you’d get it. I had a great time last night, kid. It would suck to let that get spoiled by something that’s got nothing to do with it.”

“That was just a coincidence anyway,” she finds herself saying. “I had to help the town out, so I could challenge the gym.”
“Is that so? I knew I liked you for a reason, you’re just opportunistic. I can definitely respect that. So, since that’s out of the way, we really should both be going. But, since we can both agree that it’s best to keep private and professional separate...I wouldn’t be opposed to giving you my number. It’d be great to see you again, Lyra.”

Against her better judgment, she takes his number to save in her Pokegear, giving him her number in return. She already knows that it won’t be long before she sees him again, and the worst part is, she has already begun looking forward to it. 

~X~

She likes Lance. Lyra has only known him for a little while, but already, she likes him, and that is why she follows along with him so willingly when he requests her help in dealing with Team Rocket. It’s been a long time since she’s run into Team Rocket, or at least, run into a group of them, up to something, because she’s run into Petrel a lot since she first met him. Or, rather, she hasn’t run into him so much as she’s met up with him.

While she has continued traveling and collecting her badges, Petrel has taken the time to meet up with her along the way, whenever either one of them needed it. He doesn’t talk much about work, but he thinks it’s amusing when she talks about her travels. She feels even more like a child when he teases her about her gym badges, but he always insists on hearing how she’s progressing.

Lyra likes fucking him even more each time that they do it, and comes to look forward to meeting up with him, even going so far as to miss him when she hasn’t seen him for a while. So, naturally, she thinks about him while agreeing to help Lance, and worries about breaking her promise, but ultimately goes through with it anyway.

She likes Lance, a bit more than she knows how to handle, especially after only knowing him for such a short amount of time. He is tall and handsome and his exaggerated style of dress only lends to his almost regal appearance, something assisted by his commanding air. She likes him so much that she blushes whenever he looks her way, and is willing to follow him into immediate danger, just because she wants him to praise her a little bit.

And so, she begins to battle her way through the Team Rocket headquarters, nearly forgetting the executive that could very well be waiting for her at the end of this.

~X~

Petrel can hardly believe it when he hears about it, but remains in place, waiting to see what will happen. Knowing that Lance is here is enough to make him worry, and would be enough reason to try and escape without a word, but when he hears about Lance’s partner , he stays rooted in place. A girl, a young one with a big hat and overalls, that one of the grunts says he definitely saw at the Slowpoke Well.

There’s no doubt in his mind that it’s Lyra, and so he gives the order to defend the headquarters no matter what and he stays shut away. Ariana, who shares command of this mission, would have refused to surrender either way, even if he wanted to quietly slip out in the confusion. Petrel waits, because even though he knows that it’s Lyra, he can’t quite believe it.

He last saw her a few days ago, celebrating her sixth gym badge by eating her out, and telling her before he left that he would be pretty busy for a while, but he would call her as soon as he could. What’s she doing in here now? What reason does she have for helping Lance ? Does she know him? Do they have some sort of connection? Or is it all a coincidence? And why is she here , when she promised him that she was done meddling, and that she would steer clear of Team Rocket during her travels?

He has to see her for himself to know for sure, but he still follows the procedures laid out for if someone butted in. His disguises aren’t half-bad, so he’s supposed to pretend to be Giovanni, to intimidate anyone who might try to challenge them. If word spreads that their missing boss is back in action, then that will spread even more fear throughout the region.

All he does is don a long overcoat and hat, pulling the hat low over his eyes. If he were really trying, he could pull off a convincing look, but a part of him wants Lyra to be able to recognize him easily. It won’t do him any good if he has to pretend to be someone else, someone who doesn’t know her well enough to be able to ask the questions he wants to ask. He’s too damn soft on her, he never should have let her get away once he found out who she was, and he shouldn’t go easy on her today.

Someone brings him surveillance images, and he is not only able to identify it’s Lyra, but he’s able to identify the look in her eyes when she’s standing just slightly behind Lance, staring at him while he faces the other way.

So that’s what this is all about , he thinks. She’s got a little crush on him, is that it? He doesn’t know why this irritates him so much, but it does. It doesn’t bother him nearly as much that Lyra is here ; it’s that she’s here with Lance, and that she’s probably only here with Lance because she has a thing for him. That’s such a stupid reason to risk her safety, and a pretty shitty reason to go against what she promised him, and…

Hell, if that’s the kind of guy she likes, then what has she been doing, fucking around with Petrel for anyway? That question hits him harder than he expects, and he doesn’t like the implications that it brings. He doesn’t like to think that he might actually be jealous of her attraction to Lance, when there shouldn’t be a reason to be jealous in the first place. It’s not his problem if Lyra decides to lust after the Indigo champion, and no big loss if she ends up succeeding in bagging him. Sure, what they have has become comfortable, but it is by no means anything permanent, and he’s always known that. Of course he has, because he was the one who said they could keep it going if they kept it casual.

By the time Lyra finds her way to him- without Lance, thankfully- he is already in a very bad mood. He still puts on the act of being Giovanni, which she sees through immediately, saying, “I already know it’s you, Petrel?”

“Oh, what?” he says, already removing the hat so he can give her a fake grin. “But I practiced for hours to get my impersonation right.”

“Well, if you ask me, you might need to practice a little more,” she replies, and he laughs as he shrugs off the coat and puts his hands on his hips.

“What are you doing here, Lyra?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” She’s trying not to show  that she’s nervous, but he can tell that she is. She must remember how difficult an opponent Proton was; she must be wondering if Petrel is going to even harder to deal with.

“You promised to stay out of our way,” he continues.

“Things...things changed…”

“Yeah, I bet they did.” He is upon her before she can react, and he pushes her over the desk in the center of the room, reaching to undo her overalls as he does. Once she realizes what he is doing, she squirms, trying to struggle out from under him.
“What are you doing, Petrel?” she protests. “Come on, let’s just battle and get this over with.”

“But I missed you, and I said I was gonna be busy for a while, only for you to show up to visit me,” he says, his voice dripping with false sweetness. She can probably feel his erection pressing into her. “We can battle later, if that’s what you really want, but can’t you just let me show you how much I appreciate this little visit?”

Her overalls hit the floor, and he pulls down her panties next, while Lyra squirms underneath him. “You know this isn’t a good time…”

“Why? Cos your boyfriend might catch us?”

“He isn’t- ! It’s not like that!” she practically shrieks, and her tone tells him all that he already suspected.

“If it isn’t like that, then what’s the problem?” His hand is between her legs now, and she’s already wet. Is that for him, all because of how he holds her down and teases her, or is that for Lance? Has she been soaking her panties all afternoon just because some dweeb in a cape smiled at her? If it’s all for Lance, he should be the one taking care of it, but that thought makes Petrel sick to his stomach, even sicker than it does imagining her being turned on because of him.

“The problem is, we’re both...we’re not in some hotel, we’re on opposite sides right now and-”

“We’ve always been on opposite sides, Lyra.”

There is a pause before she relaxes underneath him, pushing back against his hand a bit. “...alright. But make it fast, I don’t want-”

“You don’t want Lance to catch you like this.”

“I don’t want anyone to catch either of us like this,” she retorts, and he scoffs.

“Right,” he says, letting his annoyance slip into his tone as he reaches down for his zipper. This won’t take long at all, not with how fucking horny he is all of the sudden. He’s pissed off and vaguely nauseous and yet he’s so damn horny, and so he really is lucky that Lyra decided to drop in and visit. Otherwise, he doubts he would have had such a great chance to take care of business.

He holds onto Lyra’s hips, his fingers digging into her skin deep enough to bruise, while he pushes into her from behind and fucks her over the desk. She moans for him like she always does, giving in so easily, and demanding more from him each time she pushes back, responding to each of his thrusts. Lyra is his in a way that she will never belong to any other man, and he wishes that he could hear her say it, and wishes that she would forget all about Lance, or anyone, really. He wishes that he could make it so she never looked at anyone else and never even considered fucking anyone else, and he doesn’t understand why it matters.

All that should matter is that when they fuck, it’s good. If they have good sex, that’s it, and if they don’t, it’s over. If she falls in love with her knight in a dumb cape and leaves, then he can find someone else to have good sex with. It’s not as if Lyra is the only girl he’s ever casually fucked before, even if he hasn’t fucked anyone since he met her. They never agreed to keep it exclusive, so for all he knows, she’s slept around plenty, and for all he knows, she’s already fucked Lance, or she’s going to right after this, or…

It always come back to Lance, and before he realizes it, he finds his frustrates getting in the way, finds himself getting rougher with her as a result. His fingers dig in a little deeper and he grits his teeth, giving up on trying to keep his composure, loving the way she squeaks with each rough thrust. She likes it, which almost irritates him, but he knows that he should just be glad that she does.

“You really needed this, didn’t you?” he asks. “I mean, to come all the way out here just to fuck me...you must have been real desperate, huh?”

“Y-you know that wasn’t it,” she says, so breathless that she struggles to speak. Him pushing his hand up her shirt, under her bra, probably doesn’t help matters any. “It was just...a convenient coincidence…”

“So, that’s all I am to ya then, huh, Lyra?” he asks, his voice low as he murmurs in her ear. “You’re gonna break my heart…”

“Don’t say it like that,” she mumbles, and he jerks his hips hard, pounding into her so that he can hear her scream for him a little.

“Why not?” he grunts. “That’s how you said it. Or are you just downplaying things in case Lance hears you?”

“I…”

“You’d have a lot bigger things to worry about if he caught you fucking a Rocket executive, you know.”

He teases her while he fucks her, but his tone turns nasty, no longer playful. Lyra is still into it, but he can tell that she can tell something is up, even if she won’t say anything about it. Like hell he’s going to try and explain himself to her, when he hardly understands, and like hell he’s going to soften up at the end. If she wants a guy like Lance, she can have him, and they don’t need to keep this side thing going.

When he started this, he didn’t think that he was fucking her goodbye, but now he gets this awful feeling that he won’t be seeing her after this, and immediately tries to convince himself this is a good thing. It’s all getting to be too heavy now, and if things aren’t casual anymore, if he no longer feels casually about this, then he needs to put a stop to it.

When he’s done with her, they clean up and she insists on battling him, so that she can “earn” the password from him. It’s a stupid battle with a stupid goal, and he’s so distracted that she wipes the floor with him. Or maybe she’s just that good- it wouldn’t surprise him, with how far she’s already come. The point is, she wins, and he makes sure to tell her that the password only works with his voice.

He makes sure to tell just the same as he makes sure not to use the Murkrow he has, and makes sure to release it at just the right time to pick up what he says. It’s stupid of him to go this easy on her, to be this soft on her, but he decides that if she’s smart enough to figure it out, then she can have a little help. It’s not like this operation wasn’t already blown the minute Lance walked through the door, and she will still have to deal with Ariana before she can really say she’s done.

As for him, he’s getting away as quickly as possible, before Lyra and her new boyfriend have the chance to capture him and turn him in.

~X~

Lyra knows that Lance can’t tell she’s just fucked one of the executives that they’re trying to stop, but she feels strange being around him after leaving that office all the same. Before she went off alone, being near him gave her a sense of excitement, and she felt almost like they were on some grand adventure together. It felt like something out of a fairytale.

Petrel brought her back to reality pretty quickly. She knows that he’s mad at her, just the same as she knows she never should have come here. He made her promise not to meddle anymore, and she had intended on keeping that promise, only to get swept away by Lance. He had her convinced that she would be doing the right thing, and the idea of impressing him seemed so great at the time, almost as great as the idea of becoming some sort of hero.

In the moment, she hadn’t considered Petrel at all, and now it’s all she can think about. He’s angry with her, and that was evident in how he fucked her and how he spoke to her, but still he left behind the resources needed to make it past the locked door. He’d helped her, even when he was mad at her, and she doesn’t understand why he would, unless it was a way of thanking her for taking the time out of her mission to fuck him.

Naturally, she can’t tell Lance anything about what has transpired, and she hopes that he can’t tell what she’s done. She did a good job getting cleaned up, so it shouldn’t be obvious, but her guilt puts a damper on things, and she’s starting to realize something about herself, at the same time that she realizes that Lance already doesn’t make her heart flutter like he did earlier.

Innocent crushes and fairytale princes are a little bit beyond her now. She’s still young, still young to get wrapped up in an impossible crush on a charming older man, but her experiences put her in a different position. Lyra may still be young but she isn’t a child anymore, because a child doesn’t hook up with sleazy strangers, and a child doesn’t keep hooking up with that stranger even after finding out that he’s a Team Rocket executive.

Children get innocent crushes on guys like Lance, and girls like Lyra fuck guys like Petrel. She realizes now that she’s already outgrown it all, and that she is much more cut out for the sleazy hook ups. Lance would be great for a fantasy for someone else, but as for her, she already knows her reality. This realization is causes her to feel somewhat melancholic, and wistful as what she imagines what could have been, had she not grown up so fast, but also causes her to feel a bit relieved, because at least she knows where she stands in the world.

But the problem now is that Petrel is probably done with her. Why wouldn’t he be, after what she pulled? He teased her about Lance, but she got the feeling that it was more his way of scolding her for choosing the “right” side, when she had sworn not to go up against Team Rocket ever again. It was less about her crush, and more about her making an enemy out of him, wasn’t it?

Whatever the case, she doubts that he would want to see her again after that. She doubts that he would want to hear from her, and so she doesn’t think she can call him. If he calls her, then maybe they can work things out and go back to the way things were before, but she is too afraid to make the first move herself. All she can do is hope to hear from him, and otherwise keep to herself.

At least now she’s staying out of his way, though she wishes that she had started keeping that promise sooner. 


~X~

She shouldn’t be here.

After last time, there’s no fucking reason for Lyra to still be butting in, but here she is, alone this time. Petrel wonders if Lance put her up to this, or if they still talk at all, and why he’s still pathetic enough that he sits around imagining a relationship between them, all to get his own feelings hurt over.

Team Rocket is just barely managing to put up a front that it isn’t completely falling apart, and even then, Petrel isn’t sure how convincing that front is. No matter how hard Archer tries, no matter how hard Ariana wants to think things are different, the fact is, they’re at the end of the line. It doesn’t matter who butts in, whether it’s Lance or Lyra or some random kid off the street; all it’s gonna take is one little push, and the whole operation is going to come crumbling down.

Petrel’s already promised himself to turn and run at the first sign of that, because he isn’t so devoted that he won’t take care of himself in the end. This should be the sign he needs, but he stays where he is, like the idiot he is. After last time, he never expected to see Lyra again, and now here she is, breaking her promise again, probably because he pissed her off so bad last time that she-

He really needs to stop making these scenarios up.

The point is that he didn’t expect to see her anywhere, least of all here. After the scene he made last time, he knows she must hate him now, and that’s why she hasn’t called. Apparently she hates him enough that she still wants to play hero, though, and like an idiot, he stays right where he is instead of trying to escape, sitting there in his bullshit disguise, waiting for her to come and find him.

She recognizes him right away, of course, and he’s back out of his disguise in seconds, leaning against the desk and saying, “You just couldn’t keep away, huh?”

“The professor was worried about-”

“You’re screwing him now, too? Damn, Lyra,” he teases, hating himself more with every word he says, “you sure do get around.”
“Are we going to battle or what?” she asks, not even dignifying his remark with a response.

“What? You think I’m gonna give you the key you need just like that?” he asks. “You think you’re gonna beat me at a Pokemon battle, and then I’ll just let you on through?”

“Well, I know I’m going to beat you,” Lyra replies. “Your team kind of sucks.”

“You just can’t expect to get something for nothing,” he says. He knows she’s right about her winning, and he knows that he has a lot of nerve, asking for something like that from her after everything. Their last time should have been the last time , but it should have been the last time he ever saw her, and it wasn’t.

So now that she’s right here, he doesn’t want to pass up a perfectly good opportunity for the goodbye fuck that he definitely doesn’t deserve. And if she turns him down flat, if she slaps him like he deserves, then he can just pretend that that is enough to justify him hating her and moving on with his life. Because he really, really wants to hate her, since that’s a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Lyra doesn’t slap him, though. Lyra looks at him with something that is not quite resignation and not quite pity, and she undoes the buttons on her kiddy overalls. She says, “Only cos it’s you, Petrel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what it sounds like,” he says. “So why don’t you explain it to me?”

“You said I get around. You think I’m fucking everyone, or that I’d fuck anyone, and I…I’ve never done it with anyone but you.”

Not even Lance? The question sticks in his throat, and he thinks better of asking it. If she says it, then it’s probably true. No matter how pissed off he’s been at her, he has no reason to think that Lyra is making it up. And no matter how pissed off he’s been at her, and no matter how much he’s missed her, he isn’t going to make her fuck him for a key. None of this is her fault, and he already knows that.

Even if she said she’d stay out of his way, she’s not the fucking criminal here, she’s just the kid who keeps getting swept up in these messes cos all the other adults want her to “do the right thing,” while her criminal boyfriend- who isn’t even her boyfriend, just a fuck buddy- expects her to push all that aside, just cos they’re fucking. None of this is her fault, and he isn’t going to have a repeat of last time, fucking her over a desk while he berates her because he’s insecure and stupid enough to fall in love with a girl much too good for him.

“I was just messing with you, Lyra,” he says, fishing in his pocket for the key he’s supposed to be guarding. “You don’t even have to battle me for this one, okay?”

She stares at him as he holds it out, rightfully confused. “What are you doing?”

“Exactly what I said. Come on, I’m a nice guy. This key will get you into the underground warehouse at the far end of the Goldenrod Tunnel,” he explains. “The real director is locked up there. ‘Course, I can’t call off the men we got down there or anything, but I think you’ll be able to get to him just fine.”

Lyra takes the key from him, still wary. “You’re not being serious, are you?”

“Look, after everything...just take it and let me do something nice for you. Just this once?”

She pockets the key, fixing the buttons on her overalls, and she nods. “Alright. I...I believe you. And I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” he asks. I’m the one who needs to apologize. I’m the asshole, and you’re just a kid. You’d be a lot better off if you hadn’t met me. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t mean to make you think there was something going on between me and...and anyone else.”

“It’s none of my business if there is. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Something casual, right?” She deserves better than this. He needs to let her go now, so she can find someone she deserves, or maybe take the time to grow up, without some sleazy older guy trying to corrupt her.

“That’s what I wanted too,” she replies. “Still, I…”

“You don’t have to say anything, Lyra.”

He hates the way that she looks at him then; soft and sweet and lonely, with warmth where there should be ice. If she had looked at him with disdain, or even pity, if she had looked at him in a way that made it seem like she thinks he’s the scum of the earth- which he is- and that she never wants to see him again- which she shouldn’t- then he would be able to let go of her here and now.

Instead, when she says, “Goodbye, Petrel,” and turns to leave the room, he finds himself lacking the resolve he needs to put an end to this. Instead, he finds himself half-tempted to chase after her, to help her all the way to the end, to do whatever he can to make up for all of this, but he doesn’t. He stays where he is until he knows that Lyra is already gone, off to rescue the director, and then he puts his disguise back on and he leaves.

Team Rocket is disbanded that day, but Petrel is already long gone before Archer makes that call.

~X~

To the end, Lyra isn’t able to make sense out of anything that Petrel does. She knows just as well not to battle Team Rocket at the radio tower, and she goes for it, only partially because she feels like she should act, and partially because she wonders what will happen if she runs into Petrel. When he propositions her, she doesn’t know how she is supposed to feel, and the mixture of emotions somehow results in her feeling more defeated than anything else.

But there’s more to it beneath the surface. She’s angry with him for expecting that even now, after how he treated her before, and upset that he hasn’t called her, if he still wants her enough to try and fuck her now , and a little bit excited, a little bit too eager, because she’s missed him. If he had actually gone for it, she would have fucked him, no questions asked.

Instead, she’s sent on her way with the key, and a bittersweet feeling in her heart, and she is left even more confused than before. And she just knows, as she leaves, that that’s the last time she’s ever going to see Petrel.

Needless to say, she doesn’t expect to run into him in the Kanto region, several weeks later after obtaining her last gym badge, taming the legendary Ho-Oh, and setting off to challenge the Elite Four.

“Hey, Lyra,” he says, with a lazy wave. He’s dressed in casual clothes, like he was the first night they met, and most of the nights that they met up after that. From what she knows, Team Rocket has been completely disbanded. She knows that some key members were arrested in the aftermath, but she never found out if he was one of them.

Apparently not, since he’s standing right in front of her.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” she asks, surprised at how casual she sounds.

“I was looking for you, actually,” he replies. “You’re getting pretty famous, you know, and I heard through the grapevine that you were on your way to Victory Road, so I….”

“You could have just called me. My number hasn’t changed, or anything.” She should be mad at him, she knows, but she should have been mad at him from the start, and she never was.

“I didn’t think you would answer, and I wanted to talk in person. I know you hate me by now.”

But she doesn’t hate him, even if she should. She doesn’t know what that says about her, that she doesn’t hate him after everything, but she doesn’t. Maybe that’s part of her newfound discovery, that she’s meant for guys like him, that she’s grown out of the childish crushes and the imaginary romances.

“I don’t, I just…” She doesn’t know how to explain it any better to him, so she settles for focusing the subject on him. “What did you need to tell me in person?”

“I…” Now, he doesn’t seem to know how to explain himself. If he’s just here to apologize, she isn’t sure that that’s entirely necessary. He did help her out quite a bit the last time they met, and whether or not that’s worth forgiving him over, Lyra has decided to forgive him anyway.

If he’s here to ask if they can keep seeing each other, she isn’t sure how she is going to answer. A part of her knows that she should respect herself enough to say no, while another part of her definitely misses having him in her life. And it isn’t just because she’s been horny and had no one to work that out on, because she hasn’t even attempted to find another lover in their time apart, even though there have been so many nights spent struggling to pleasure herself that she felt like she was back at home, before she’d ever known what it was like to be touched by a man.

She misses having Petrel in her life because she misses Petrel , and she has done her best not to think about whether that goes any further than their hookups. Falling for Lance was one thing, and was childish enough on its own. She definitely knows better than to do something as stupid as getting one of those fantasy crushes on the man that she hooks up with. But then, why does she miss him so much, and why does she already think she would do anything just to have him back in her life?

He hasn’t said anything for a while, but she’s been too lost in her own thoughts to really comment. The silence is awkward, and she thinks about telling him that she’s in a hurry to challenge the Elite Four, just to see if that will make him speak faster. Whatever he has to say, she wants to hear it before she has to leave him again. Self-respect or not, she decides right then and there that if the chance to keep seeing him comes up, she will definitely take it.

“I don’t deserve you, Lyra,” he finally says, much to her surprise. “A good girl like you never should have gotten involved with trash like me. You must at least know that much by now, huh?”

“I don’t think you’re trash.” She isn’t sure if that’s actually true or not, but she at least says it to be polite.

“You’re sweet. See? That’s just what I mean, you’re way to good for me, and I…” He groans. “I shouldn’t even be bothering you with this, it’s just, I don’t want to say I never said anything. So that’s why I tracked you down, so that I could at least try. Now, it turns out I’m having a little trouble with that.”

He laughs, and Lyra does not dare to hope that he has come here to confess to her. Instead, she says, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

“You’re in a hurry, I know.” She hasn’t even said that she is yet, but he seems to understand that he is making her impatient. “Look, I want you to just go on ahead and win, okay? I’ll be waiting for you after. If that’s alright.”

Her heart racing, she wills her hands to stop shaking. Petrel is going to wait for her, and when she comes back, he will tell her what he wants to say. She doesn’t dare to hope that he’s planning on confessing to her, but at the same time, she doesn’t know what else could be so important that he would have to find her in person, and what else could be so flustering that it causes him to put it off, already certain that he won’t find the nerve to say it right here and now.

So she decides that she will act on that assumption, and she tries to steady her heart, and find a tone that is somewhat playful and somewhat bitter. “How do you know I’ll come back for you?” she asks. “I have to battle Lance at the end of this. How do you know I won’t just run off with him?”

“I don’t know for sure, and I couldn’t stop you if you did,” he replies, not missing a beat, falling comfortably into the banter, and letting it give him the push that he needs. “You might, but I’d be real sad if you did, cos I love you, Lyra.”

I love you, Lyra. 

Petrel is the first man that she’s ever kissed, the first man that she’s ever taken to bed, and now the first man to tell her that he loves her. He is far from the ideal, definitely not the sort of man that she should want, and has never been any good for her. She should hate him, after all of this, and even if the other men she has looked at have all been impossible fantasies, she would be far better off staying a child and losing herself in those fantasies, than growing up to face the fact that she has begun the kind of young woman that falls in love with men like Petrel.

“I’ll come back for you,” she finally says, before stepping forward, closing the distance that he has left between the two of them. Lyra gives him a quick kiss, their first kiss in a very long time. When she steps back again, Petrel can’t seem to stop grinning. “I’ll come back as soon as I win. I’ll call first, and we can meet up then.”

She doesn’t tell him that she loves him too, but she doesn’t have to. Besides, she does plan on saying it once she sees him again. He’s made her wait long enough for this, and done more than enough to deserve some punishment. The way she sees it, it’s only fair to make him wait on it a little while longer. 

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