Cities in Sand
Title: Cities of Sand
Fandom: Pokemon
Rating: T for Teen
Characters/Pairing: Red, Green (Red/Green)
Word Count: 2,145
Summary: Red and Green go on vacation. (Because, really, there's only so many times you can lose at Go Fish.) Written for daicheto, who asked for Red/Green fluff on a beach.
The problem with Red, Green thinks as he stares down at the deck of cards between them, is that the boy’s sense of what counts as fun is incredibly screwed up.
“Go fish.”
Green huffs and throws his hand of cards down on the rocky ground.
“You know what? No. I refuse to do this. It’s the middle of July and right now we could be hanging out on a beach somewhere, surrounded by legions of adoring fangirls.”
Red peers at him from behind his own hand, Pikachu curled up on his lap. Green meets his blank stare with a glare of his own.
“I don’t like crowds.”
“Well, yeah, okay. No adoring fangirls. But still, there is no good reason for us to be sitting up here on top of Mount freaking Silver playing Go Fish instead of somewhere the temperature occasionally goes above thirty degrees.”
Red just blinks at that, slow and lazy. Is it too late for Green to go back and get a new best friend? Maybe one who occasionally shows more than two emotions?
“Not playing,” Red murmurs.
“Huh?” And also maybe one who knows how to actually hold a conversation?
“The score’s two-fifty-seven to zero. Doesn’t count as playing if you never win.”
It takes a moment for Green to catch on, to notice the little quirk to his mouth and spark in his eye that means Red is actually teasing him, but when he does he flushes. That’s the other problem with Red, he thinks angrily. It’s not that he doesn’t have a sense of humor. It’s just that what humor he does have is drier than Orre in the middle of a drought and liable to sneak up on you when you least expect it.
“Screw you. I’m awesome at this game,” Green grumbles, trying to pretend he’s blushing out of anger rather than embarrassment.
“Mmm-hmm.” Red turns his attention back to his cards. “Got any sevens?”
“Agh!” Green lurches to his feet and stomps away from the fire, trying to force some feeling back into his frozen legs.
The weather outside their little cave is even worse than inside-the wind whips against his cheeks and chills him to the bone as he stands out there. After a moment, he hears a slight crunching of snow. Red (and Pikachu too, because he never goes anywhere without his starter) have followed him out into the cold.
“Sorry.”
Sighing, Green runs his hands through his hair. “No, it’s fine. I knew you were a weirdo when I first made friends with you.”
“And I knew you were a jerk, so. We’re even.” Red smiles at him then, and Green can’t help but to grin back.
“We can, if you want,” Red says after a moment.
“Huh?”
“Go somewhere warm, I mean.”
It takes a moment for Green to get what Red is saying.
“Wait, seriously? You mean you’ll go somewhere with me? Somewhere with surf and sun and those little cocktail drinks they put umbrellas in?”
“Yes.” Red glares at him. “But no fangirls. Ever.”
“Pssh. I was joking about the fangirls, anyway.”
“Liar.”
Okay, yeah, maybe he wasn’t. But it’s not like he’s going to admit that now. Instead, he groans and clutches dramatically at his chest. “You wound me, Red. Really, I feel so betrayed.”
Red snorts and shoves him lightly.
“Oof! What was that for, asshole?”
But Red doesn’t respond, already walking back into his cave.
“Make travel plans!” he calls as he crawls inside.
Conversation over.
Jerk, Green thinks as he starts to pick his way back down the mountain. But still, he can’t quite quench the excitement flaring up. He’s going on vacation. A vacation with Red, no less, who probably hasn’t come down from Mount Silver for at least ten months.
Green pulls out his phone and starts making plans.
--
The first person he calls is Leaf, because good friends never miss a chance to gloat. She picks up on the third ring with a perky “Hello!”
“Hey Leaf,” he says, smirking even though she can’t see him. “Guess what?”
“You finally proposed to Red?”
“You wish.” And now he’s blushing again and goddammit what is with his friends and teasing him today.
She laughs. “Great comeback you’ve got going there, Green. Really, I haven’t heard anything so eloquent since the days of “smell you later”.”
It’s been six years, but they still love to mock him about that one. Green grits his teeth.
“Okay, yes. I was ten. Can we please move on?”
“Haha, alright. So what did you call me for?”
“Weeell, I was just wondering if you knew of any nice beaches around the Kanto area. Red and I are going on a vacation.”
“Seriously?” He can hear the note of surprise in her voice- Leaf knows as well as he does that getting Red off his mountain takes no less than a miracle. “Well, you better be calling to invite me along.”
“Sorry. Red told me I wasn’t allowed to bring along any of my adoring fangirls.”
“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want interrupt your loving honeymoon.” He can hear the laughter in her voice, but it doesn’t stop him from getting flustered. He and Red are not like that, dammit.
“Anyway,” Leaf says before he gets a chance to react, “If you’re looking for nice beaches, I’ve heard tell that Cinnabar is lovely this time of year.”
With that, she laughs again and hangs up. He sighs and pockets his phone, slowly working his way down Mount Silver.
--
Four days later, he and Red meet up in Pallet Town. It’s midnight, both because Red doesn’t like the sun and because if his mom knew her kid was here and not planning on visiting him they would never hear the end of it.
Green’s fashionably late, as always, but Red at least never lectures him for it. He just gives him a little nod when he finally makes his way to the patch of grass south of Pallet and pulls his Pikachu back into his pokeball-Red’s starter always gets flightsick on long rides. Green releases his pidgeot and Red lets out his charizard, and they are off into the vivid night sky. Planes are for boring people.
Like everything else between the two of them, their trip turns into a contest. Normally it’s Green who starts their little competitions up, but this time it really is Red’s fault. A few minutes after the two take off, Red nudges his charizard over into pidgeot’s airspace, so close the two of them could almost hold hands. (Not, of course, that Green would ever want to do something like that.)
He looks toward his friend nervously, wondering if something might be wrong. Red flashes him a very deliberate, very devious smirk, and Green has just enough time to think, Oh, fuck before Red’s charizard belches a cloud of smoke right at Green and pidgeot.
For a moment all Green can see are his own tears stinging at his face. Underneath him, his pidgeot squawks in surprise, beating its wings furiously to try and clear the smoke away. A few seconds later and they are out of the cloud, just in time for Green to catch a glimpse of Red actually laughing, hands thrown to the sky as his charizard pulls ahead into the night.
“Oh, it is on,” Green says, urging his pidgeot forward. Red’s going to regret that.
--
In the end, it probably ends up a tie. (Not that he’d ever admit it-anything less than complete domination isn’t good enough for Green Oak.) Green manages to get a few good moves in-he’s particularly proud of the fact that he almost managed to knock Red off his charizard-but Red’s a lot slyer than most people assume and he gives as good as he gets.
After a few hours of that both boys and their Pokémon are spent, and it’s with a huge wave of relief that Green points down at the island they’re supposed to be staying on. If they’d had to fly much longer, Pidgeot and Charizard might’ve just dropped right into the ocean.
The island’s a nice little place that Leaf recommended to him, with a luxurious hotel and a few restaurants on its other side. (It’s actually a very popular honeymoon location, but Green really doesn’t plan on telling Red that.)
His pidgeot stumbles as it lands, exhausted, and Green is almost immediately off its back and standing next to it, checking for injury or fatigue. He probably shouldn’t have pushed it so hard, but when Red’s around he tends to forget his Pokémon’s limits as well as his own.
Pidgeot’s just tired, though, so he calls it back into its ball.
“Get some rest, okay?” he murmurs as the red light absorbs his Pokémon. He can see Red doing the same out of the corner of his eye, and a second later Charizard disappears, leaving them alone on the beach.
For a moment they just stand there. Red seems to be enjoying the night breeze, and Green’s mostly enjoying Red-his dark eyes, his silence, just the fact that he’s here.
Eventually he realizes that, Hey, this is a little awkward, and clears his throat.
“Red,” he calls out, hefting his tote bag over his shoulder. “We’d better get walking. Hotel’s ‘bout two miles from here.”
Red shakes his head.
“Seriously.” Green scowls. “We gotta get moving.”
Red decides that right now would be a great time to sit down.
“Are you kidding me?”
Red motions him over with a wave of his hand, gazed fixed on the ground beneath him.
Green sighs and drops his tote bag back on the ground, then walks over to where Red is sitting.
It takes a moment for him to figure out just what his friend is doing, but when it hits him he almost wants to laugh.
“Really?” he says instead. “It’s three in the morning and you want to make sandcastles?”
“Yup,” Red says, flattening out one edge of his sloppy tower. “Pokémon League’s here.”
Once he’s got it reasonably even ,he stops working on that castle and turns his attention to a spot about a foot to the left. There, he starts shoveling sand into a sloppy little pile that resembles nothing so much as a very tall hill.
“Mount Silver,” he explains.
“Ah,” Green says finally catching on. “So then-” He plops down to the right of Red, legs splayed out across the sand. “-Viridian City would be right about here, yeah?”
For that, Green’s rewarded with a small smile, and he can’t help but feel wonderful at the sight of it.
They work on their map for a while, building Pewter Town and Cerulean City and even a small-scale replica of Lavender’s Pokémon Tower. It’s only when Green’s legs have gone numb and his mind has gone fuzzy that he finally stands up.
“C’mon, idiot,” he mumbles. “If we fall asleep out here it’s going to be your fault.”
For a second he’s afraid Red is going to refuse, but after a moment the teen nods and pulls himself up onto his feet. They stand there for a little while, admiring their creation.
“Missing something,” Red finally says, an odd, frustrated tone to his voice.
“What?” Green turns his head, annoyed and sleepy and so ready for a nice hotel bed, and-
-and Red’s lips catch his own.
Oh.
Oh.
Some part of Green’s brain is screaming that he should push Red away right now that this was not what he had in mind when he invited his best friend on vacation. But that voice is buried under layers and layers of Oh. Huh. I think I kind of like this, and Green doesn’t quite feel like listening to it right now.
It’s Red who finally breaks the kiss (and holy fuck yes that was a kiss). He just suddenly pulls away, leaving the space next to Green feeling far, far too empty, and calmly walks over to where he left his duffel bag.
“Coming?” he calls as he hoists it over his shoulder and sets off along the beach.
“Oh. Um, Yeah. Yeah.”
What he wants to say is, “What was that?” but that would be stupid because he already knows the answer to that particular question. Instead, he just walks back over to his own luggage, picks it up, and follows Red off into the night. There’ll be time later for that, once he’s gotten a decent night’s rest and a hot breakfast in him. For now he can just…relax, maybe. And enjoy the slight aftertaste that Red’s lips left on his mouth.
(He is very glad, however, that he decided not to bring any of his adoring fangirls along. That would have been awkward.)
Fandom: Pokemon
Rating: T for Teen
Characters/Pairing: Red, Green (Red/Green)
Word Count: 2,145
Summary: Red and Green go on vacation. (Because, really, there's only so many times you can lose at Go Fish.) Written for daicheto, who asked for Red/Green fluff on a beach.
The problem with Red, Green thinks as he stares down at the deck of cards between them, is that the boy’s sense of what counts as fun is incredibly screwed up.
“Go fish.”
Green huffs and throws his hand of cards down on the rocky ground.
“You know what? No. I refuse to do this. It’s the middle of July and right now we could be hanging out on a beach somewhere, surrounded by legions of adoring fangirls.”
Red peers at him from behind his own hand, Pikachu curled up on his lap. Green meets his blank stare with a glare of his own.
“I don’t like crowds.”
“Well, yeah, okay. No adoring fangirls. But still, there is no good reason for us to be sitting up here on top of Mount freaking Silver playing Go Fish instead of somewhere the temperature occasionally goes above thirty degrees.”
Red just blinks at that, slow and lazy. Is it too late for Green to go back and get a new best friend? Maybe one who occasionally shows more than two emotions?
“Not playing,” Red murmurs.
“Huh?” And also maybe one who knows how to actually hold a conversation?
“The score’s two-fifty-seven to zero. Doesn’t count as playing if you never win.”
It takes a moment for Green to catch on, to notice the little quirk to his mouth and spark in his eye that means Red is actually teasing him, but when he does he flushes. That’s the other problem with Red, he thinks angrily. It’s not that he doesn’t have a sense of humor. It’s just that what humor he does have is drier than Orre in the middle of a drought and liable to sneak up on you when you least expect it.
“Screw you. I’m awesome at this game,” Green grumbles, trying to pretend he’s blushing out of anger rather than embarrassment.
“Mmm-hmm.” Red turns his attention back to his cards. “Got any sevens?”
“Agh!” Green lurches to his feet and stomps away from the fire, trying to force some feeling back into his frozen legs.
The weather outside their little cave is even worse than inside-the wind whips against his cheeks and chills him to the bone as he stands out there. After a moment, he hears a slight crunching of snow. Red (and Pikachu too, because he never goes anywhere without his starter) have followed him out into the cold.
“Sorry.”
Sighing, Green runs his hands through his hair. “No, it’s fine. I knew you were a weirdo when I first made friends with you.”
“And I knew you were a jerk, so. We’re even.” Red smiles at him then, and Green can’t help but to grin back.
“We can, if you want,” Red says after a moment.
“Huh?”
“Go somewhere warm, I mean.”
It takes a moment for Green to get what Red is saying.
“Wait, seriously? You mean you’ll go somewhere with me? Somewhere with surf and sun and those little cocktail drinks they put umbrellas in?”
“Yes.” Red glares at him. “But no fangirls. Ever.”
“Pssh. I was joking about the fangirls, anyway.”
“Liar.”
Okay, yeah, maybe he wasn’t. But it’s not like he’s going to admit that now. Instead, he groans and clutches dramatically at his chest. “You wound me, Red. Really, I feel so betrayed.”
Red snorts and shoves him lightly.
“Oof! What was that for, asshole?”
But Red doesn’t respond, already walking back into his cave.
“Make travel plans!” he calls as he crawls inside.
Conversation over.
Jerk, Green thinks as he starts to pick his way back down the mountain. But still, he can’t quite quench the excitement flaring up. He’s going on vacation. A vacation with Red, no less, who probably hasn’t come down from Mount Silver for at least ten months.
Green pulls out his phone and starts making plans.
--
The first person he calls is Leaf, because good friends never miss a chance to gloat. She picks up on the third ring with a perky “Hello!”
“Hey Leaf,” he says, smirking even though she can’t see him. “Guess what?”
“You finally proposed to Red?”
“You wish.” And now he’s blushing again and goddammit what is with his friends and teasing him today.
She laughs. “Great comeback you’ve got going there, Green. Really, I haven’t heard anything so eloquent since the days of “smell you later”.”
It’s been six years, but they still love to mock him about that one. Green grits his teeth.
“Okay, yes. I was ten. Can we please move on?”
“Haha, alright. So what did you call me for?”
“Weeell, I was just wondering if you knew of any nice beaches around the Kanto area. Red and I are going on a vacation.”
“Seriously?” He can hear the note of surprise in her voice- Leaf knows as well as he does that getting Red off his mountain takes no less than a miracle. “Well, you better be calling to invite me along.”
“Sorry. Red told me I wasn’t allowed to bring along any of my adoring fangirls.”
“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want interrupt your loving honeymoon.” He can hear the laughter in her voice, but it doesn’t stop him from getting flustered. He and Red are not like that, dammit.
“Anyway,” Leaf says before he gets a chance to react, “If you’re looking for nice beaches, I’ve heard tell that Cinnabar is lovely this time of year.”
With that, she laughs again and hangs up. He sighs and pockets his phone, slowly working his way down Mount Silver.
--
Four days later, he and Red meet up in Pallet Town. It’s midnight, both because Red doesn’t like the sun and because if his mom knew her kid was here and not planning on visiting him they would never hear the end of it.
Green’s fashionably late, as always, but Red at least never lectures him for it. He just gives him a little nod when he finally makes his way to the patch of grass south of Pallet and pulls his Pikachu back into his pokeball-Red’s starter always gets flightsick on long rides. Green releases his pidgeot and Red lets out his charizard, and they are off into the vivid night sky. Planes are for boring people.
Like everything else between the two of them, their trip turns into a contest. Normally it’s Green who starts their little competitions up, but this time it really is Red’s fault. A few minutes after the two take off, Red nudges his charizard over into pidgeot’s airspace, so close the two of them could almost hold hands. (Not, of course, that Green would ever want to do something like that.)
He looks toward his friend nervously, wondering if something might be wrong. Red flashes him a very deliberate, very devious smirk, and Green has just enough time to think, Oh, fuck before Red’s charizard belches a cloud of smoke right at Green and pidgeot.
For a moment all Green can see are his own tears stinging at his face. Underneath him, his pidgeot squawks in surprise, beating its wings furiously to try and clear the smoke away. A few seconds later and they are out of the cloud, just in time for Green to catch a glimpse of Red actually laughing, hands thrown to the sky as his charizard pulls ahead into the night.
“Oh, it is on,” Green says, urging his pidgeot forward. Red’s going to regret that.
--
In the end, it probably ends up a tie. (Not that he’d ever admit it-anything less than complete domination isn’t good enough for Green Oak.) Green manages to get a few good moves in-he’s particularly proud of the fact that he almost managed to knock Red off his charizard-but Red’s a lot slyer than most people assume and he gives as good as he gets.
After a few hours of that both boys and their Pokémon are spent, and it’s with a huge wave of relief that Green points down at the island they’re supposed to be staying on. If they’d had to fly much longer, Pidgeot and Charizard might’ve just dropped right into the ocean.
The island’s a nice little place that Leaf recommended to him, with a luxurious hotel and a few restaurants on its other side. (It’s actually a very popular honeymoon location, but Green really doesn’t plan on telling Red that.)
His pidgeot stumbles as it lands, exhausted, and Green is almost immediately off its back and standing next to it, checking for injury or fatigue. He probably shouldn’t have pushed it so hard, but when Red’s around he tends to forget his Pokémon’s limits as well as his own.
Pidgeot’s just tired, though, so he calls it back into its ball.
“Get some rest, okay?” he murmurs as the red light absorbs his Pokémon. He can see Red doing the same out of the corner of his eye, and a second later Charizard disappears, leaving them alone on the beach.
For a moment they just stand there. Red seems to be enjoying the night breeze, and Green’s mostly enjoying Red-his dark eyes, his silence, just the fact that he’s here.
Eventually he realizes that, Hey, this is a little awkward, and clears his throat.
“Red,” he calls out, hefting his tote bag over his shoulder. “We’d better get walking. Hotel’s ‘bout two miles from here.”
Red shakes his head.
“Seriously.” Green scowls. “We gotta get moving.”
Red decides that right now would be a great time to sit down.
“Are you kidding me?”
Red motions him over with a wave of his hand, gazed fixed on the ground beneath him.
Green sighs and drops his tote bag back on the ground, then walks over to where Red is sitting.
It takes a moment for him to figure out just what his friend is doing, but when it hits him he almost wants to laugh.
“Really?” he says instead. “It’s three in the morning and you want to make sandcastles?”
“Yup,” Red says, flattening out one edge of his sloppy tower. “Pokémon League’s here.”
Once he’s got it reasonably even ,he stops working on that castle and turns his attention to a spot about a foot to the left. There, he starts shoveling sand into a sloppy little pile that resembles nothing so much as a very tall hill.
“Mount Silver,” he explains.
“Ah,” Green says finally catching on. “So then-” He plops down to the right of Red, legs splayed out across the sand. “-Viridian City would be right about here, yeah?”
For that, Green’s rewarded with a small smile, and he can’t help but feel wonderful at the sight of it.
They work on their map for a while, building Pewter Town and Cerulean City and even a small-scale replica of Lavender’s Pokémon Tower. It’s only when Green’s legs have gone numb and his mind has gone fuzzy that he finally stands up.
“C’mon, idiot,” he mumbles. “If we fall asleep out here it’s going to be your fault.”
For a second he’s afraid Red is going to refuse, but after a moment the teen nods and pulls himself up onto his feet. They stand there for a little while, admiring their creation.
“Missing something,” Red finally says, an odd, frustrated tone to his voice.
“What?” Green turns his head, annoyed and sleepy and so ready for a nice hotel bed, and-
-and Red’s lips catch his own.
Oh.
Oh.
Some part of Green’s brain is screaming that he should push Red away right now that this was not what he had in mind when he invited his best friend on vacation. But that voice is buried under layers and layers of Oh. Huh. I think I kind of like this, and Green doesn’t quite feel like listening to it right now.
It’s Red who finally breaks the kiss (and holy fuck yes that was a kiss). He just suddenly pulls away, leaving the space next to Green feeling far, far too empty, and calmly walks over to where he left his duffel bag.
“Coming?” he calls as he hoists it over his shoulder and sets off along the beach.
“Oh. Um, Yeah. Yeah.”
What he wants to say is, “What was that?” but that would be stupid because he already knows the answer to that particular question. Instead, he just walks back over to his own luggage, picks it up, and follows Red off into the night. There’ll be time later for that, once he’s gotten a decent night’s rest and a hot breakfast in him. For now he can just…relax, maybe. And enjoy the slight aftertaste that Red’s lips left on his mouth.
(He is very glad, however, that he decided not to bring any of his adoring fangirls along. That would have been awkward.)