Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hearthome was always well lit, far more than a city of its size could justify. Unlike Jubilife or Veilstone, Hearthome lacked all the usual nightlife structures that kept cities alive and bustling around the clock. There were no major shopping districts or gaming corners, no skyscrapers or nightclubs. The only structure that would attract large crowds late into the evening was the contest hall. However, on nights like these, nights when the contest hall was locked and dark, the streets were empty.

A myriad of light posts illuminated lonely brick roads. Bright spotlights glittered in the spray of marble fountains. It was a beautiful place for an evening stroll, a peaceful atmosphere that one could meditate in.

Rose was blind to all of it. In this moment, all that mattered was her destination.

The Lucario stumbled frantically through the streets, tears streaming down her cheeks and blood dripping from her elbows. She gasped for air, her breath made sporadic by the hysterics of adrenaline. She cradled an unconscious human against her chest, a near-corpse almost twice her weight.

Her forepaws trembled under him, praying that he was still there, that she wasn’t too late. His blood soaked into her fur and dribbled down her legs, leaving a trail of crimson dots and bloody paw prints behind her as she ran.

The dying human grew heavy in her arms. Rose’s muscles burned and cramped with overexertion. Her ears pounded and her head spun. If exhaustion wouldn’t bring her to the ground, the dizziness would. Her senses were so numb that she had to consciously check that her legs were still underneath her and force any faltering muscle back to life.

Her heart threatened to burst under the pressure. Even with adrenaline to mask the pain, her body was at its limit. As desperate as she was, her pace was crippled to an unsteady limp.

She fought against the furious protests of her body until she reached the Pokemon Center. This was not the correct place she needed to bring her owner. Dresdin was a human; he needed a hospital, but Rose didn’t understand that. This was where Dresdin brought her when she was hurt. The hysterical Pokemon didn’t know where else to go.

The automatic glass doors slid open, and Rose collapsed to her knees on the threshold. Her arms were incapable of supporting her owner any longer. His lifeless body fell to the ground and Rose barely caught herself from falling atop him.

“ L-Luca…-rio! ” she quavered to the empty lobby. “ L-Lucario! ” she pleaded again, louder and more desperate. A young man emerged from a back room behind the front counter and was momentarily stunned by the bloodsoaked duo that collapsed in the entryway. Ironically, his job at the Pokemon Center left the young man unaccustomed to the sight of grievous injury and death.

“N-NURSE!” The man rushed to the back to summon more staff, leaving Rose alone with her unresponsive owner. 

Rose curled herself around the unconscious human and pressed her cheek against his, praying for Arceus to bring him back to her.

Soon, the duo were swarmed by people and sirens. Rose instinctively tightened her grip on her owner as the arrival of help mimicked the terror they just escaped, surrounded by demons in dark uniforms. Her instincts whispered in her ear, telling her to fight, to protect her partner from the monsters once more. Letting anyone near Dresdin was among the hardest things she had to do that night, but she managed to restrain her protective nature long enough for the paramedics to attend to her dying partner.

Chapter Text

Rose kneaded her forepaws. The blood that saturated her fur had long since dried, covering her in patches of reddish black. Her anxious fidgeting dislodged the scabby crumbs from her coat, sprinkling a layer of crimson dust at her feet. The hospital room had a bench for visitors to wait on, but Rose couldn’t sit so far away from Dresdin. She stood tall beside his bed, moving only if a doctor or nurse needed access to her unresponsive trainer. 

She watched him carefully for any stirring. The painkillers in his IV had him fading in and out of consciousness. His face was wrapped in bandages and his mind was addled by drugs. When he drifted awake, he was always disoriented and afraid, blind and confused. Each time this happened, Rose was right there to tell him everything was ok and soothe him back to sleep. She stood guard at his bedside all night, awaiting his next episode. Regardless of when he came to, Rose would ensure he never woke up alone. 

The Lucario’s eyes left her owner for a moment to marvel at the machines monitoring him. Several screens flashed with updating numbers, measurements of human vitals that she didn’t understand. However, there was one that she recognized, one that explained itself to all who saw it. It was a black monitor that displayed a little blue dot that skipped up and down, rhythmic and predictable, leaving a dim trail behind as it hopped along the screen. This was Dresdin’s heartbeat. Rose really liked this machine. Even when her owner wasn’t moving, this machine assured her that she wasn’t too late, and that everything was going to be alright…

Rose’s ears flicked up as her partner shifted in the hospital bed.

Dresdin groaned weakly. His injuries itched. He lifted a hand to scratch at the cauterized and stitched wounds only to recoil at the padded gauze around his face and chest. His injuries were dressed with excessive fabric so he didn’t rip open the holes in his chest and the lacerations through his eyes in a waking haze. Rose was relieved to see that Dresdin remembered where he was before digging into his bandages too much.

Dresdin listened for any movement in his surroundings. As he opened his mouth to call out, Rose reached out and rested a forepaw gently on his shoulder.

“Ro-se?” he flinched halfway through her name as he felt his partner’s touch.

“Lucario… [ Shhh… I’m right here, master… ]” 

Dresdin huffed a relieved sigh as his partner rested her other paw atop his hand. No matter how many times he was reminded where he was or why he couldn’t see, her familiar touch and soothing voice were the only true comforts he had. He didn’t know how long he was out, but he could tell that Rose was standing at his bedside the whole time.

Dresdin heaved a chuckle as he squeezed and played with his partner’s forepaw. “You must be getting tired…”

Rose hummed at his concern. He was right. Her whole body ached with sore muscles and tight joints. She hadn’t slept in over thirty hours, and the events of those thirty hours tied her heart into a tense knot. Her legs trembled, threatening to collapse beneath her… but she couldn’t let Dresdin know that. He had endured plenty and shouldn't be worrying about her.

“Rio~… [ I’ll be fine~ ]” she soothed, encouraging her owner to drift back to sleep.

A familiar nurse poked her head in.

“Ah! You’re awake!”

Rose and Dresdin both flinched at the sudden outburst.

“Another hit of morphine can fix that real quick~” Dresdin smirked at the voice in the doorway as he rubbed at his bandaged face.

“Maybe if you behave~” The nurse played along. “I need you to be lucid for a few minutes. You have a visitor!” 

Rose’s ears flicked up and Dresdin made it obvious that they both hoped for the same thing:

“Is mom here?” 

“Sorry, no. Your mother’s flight will land a little later this evening.”

Dresdin and Rose shared a disappointed frown.

“If you're feeling up for it, this gentleman wanted to ask you a couple questions.” 

Dresdin didn’t respond immediately. The nurse frowned at his hesitation. “Or… I can tell him to come back later?”

“Uh… No, let him in,” Dresdin could feel Rose squeezing his hand. She was the only one who could see the man through the doorway. Dresdin had to guess through touch what his Pokemon saw, probably someone large and menacing…

“Dresdin Sinclair?”

The man’s deep and gruff voice offered another hint as to why Rose’s grip grew so tense.

“That’s correct.”

“Good afternoon. My name is Jeffory Ainsworth. I’m a detective for the Hearthome Police Department. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple questions about what happened just outside of town last night.”

Ah, a police officer. Dresdin understood why Rose clasped his hand so tight. Questions about last night were the last thing either of them wanted to answer.

Dresdin paused. He could feel how brittle and matted Rose's fur was around her forepaw and tried to imagine how much blood she still had in her coat. Rose hadn’t washed up yet, and presented a grisly appearance to the officer.

“I’m not entirely sure what Rose did to bring me here… but, she isn’t… aggressive… or dangerous. That’s… not her.” Dresdin chose his words carefully, concerned that choosing the wrong ones would endanger his Pokemon.

Officer Ainsworth perked up at Dresdin’s unease and rushed to clear the air.

“Your Lucario was protecting you.” he stated calmly. “This is obvious self defense, and neither of you are suspected of any crimes. However, considering the crime scene we found, we would like to get everyone's story as fast as possible. I can come back later if you prefer.”

The intimidating stature of the man was somewhat dispelled by his delicate approach. Rose relaxed her grip on Dresdin’s hand, and he took that as implicit approval.

“That’s a relief. If that’s the case, I’m happy to help!” Dresdin forced a weak smile.

“Thank you! It shouldn’t take too long…” The officer entered the room but stopped just inside the doorway. “We already have most of the information we need, but could you go over what happened? Everything you remember, at least.”

“Right…” Dresdin paused to consider how far back he should start his recount. “First off, this is Rose.” he motioned to the Lucario holding his hand. 

Rose offered the police officer a polite bow of the head.

“Nice to meet you~” The officer mirrored the Lucario’s bow. Rose could feel the stranger’s aura. The glow emanating from the human was warm and sincere, reassuring Rose that he wasn’t there to antagonize either of them.

“Rose and I have a... ‘spot’ in the mountains that we like to hike to a few times a year. It’s a little pond nestled between Mt. Coronet and an adjacent mountain. It’s hard to get to, but it’s always vacant.”

“Does it have a nice view?”

“No, quite the opposite. It has cliffs on all sides, completely private. Even the pond itself is partially covered by a protruding rock formation above. We go up there to be alone. Sometimes we swim in the pond; there are plenty of boulders for Rose to bash and harden her knuckles against; it’s quiet enough for some deep meditation; the rocky cliffs are so tall they seem to block out the whole world…”

Dresdin shook his head as he wandered off topic.

“Anyways, we brought up some food for a picnic and we spent our day up there. In the evening, Rose and I were hiking home from our favorite spot…” Dresdin paused as he tried to piece together the mess of events. “I can’t quite remember what we were talking about at the time…” Dresdin finally concluded.

“Can... you understand her?”

“Oh! Yes, Rose has been in our family for a very long time… Pokespeak is a weird, single-word language, but my mother and I have heard her grunt ‘Lucario’ enough to have a sense of what she is trying to say!” Dresdin offered a weak chuckle, but his injuries prevented any real laughter.

“Is that so? Maybe I should spend a bit more time with my Pokemon!”

“I think you should! Pokemon are much better company than we give em’ credit for!”  

Rose smiled and rubbed her owner’s hand.

“Right, so… Rose and I made it off the mountain a little before sundown. We were hustling along that hiking trail into town… the one that runs by the Berry Master’s house. I was hoping to reach some streetlights before the sky fell completely black, but that wasn’t going to happen. 

My hiking buddy was a Pokemon that can use aura to navigate through the dark, so she wasn’t too concerned about the coming night.

We came to a spot in the path where the trees opened up and offered a full view of this gorgeous sunset. Rose wanted to take a moment to admire it… So we did.”

Rose’s grip on her owner tightened as she dreaded the next part of the story, the part she wished never happened.

“Before I could really react, there was an arm locked around my neck, bending me back over a weapon being jammed into my side…”

“A knife?”

“No, it was a blocky piece of metal… I assumed it was a gun…” Dresdin paused again to reorganize his thoughts. “The man behind me said something like: ‘Do what we say and no one has to die.’”

“Do you remember how many there were?”

Dresdin pursed his lips. 

“Three humans… two Pokemon? A Mightyena and Toxicroak.”

“Lucario... [ Three Pokemon… ]” Rose corrected.

Dresdin raised a free hand to his face and rubbed at the gauze covering it.

“Ah, right…” he muttered. There was one Pokemon he didn’t see. The one that slashed his face open. “What was it?”

“Rio… [ A Weavile… ]” Rose droned.

Dresdin chuckled nervously.

“Yeah, that would do it… So… Three human males, three Pokemon. One was a Weavile standing behind me. All of the humans wore some sort of black uniform, but I didn’t recognize it from anywhere.”

“Did they all approach from the same direction?”

“No… All directions… surrounded. If Rose had the sense to run, she didn’t have a great path of escape. She was… terrified, to say the least. She spun around a couple times, trying to discern who she should take a defensive stance against. The man behind me said: ‘Put her in her Pokeball’. Hikers don’t usually carry valuables on them, but Lucario are… ‘valuable’ Pokemon. They were there to take Rose from me.”

Dresdin paused, disgusted as his imagination filled his head with the potential fate of his partner if that happened. He was momentarily plagued with horrific images of Rose being passed around illicit trading rings, being made into a collection piece, a pit fighter or a sex object. Dresdin squeezed Rose’s forepaw and refocused on his recount:

“Rose took a couple steps towards me, eyes wide, forepaws shaking. She noticed the gun up against my ribs and… nothing else mattered to her. She needed to protect me. The man backed up, dragging me with him. ‘Put her in her Pokeball’ he repeated, digging the gun into my side. Tears slid down Rose's cheeks… it was obvious her better judgment was telling her to stop, that I would be killed if she got too close, but her protective instincts forced her towards me. Rose took a couple steps closer. Her forepaws curled into fists. The man lifted the gun from my side and pointed it at Rose, screaming for her to stop… That was... much more horrifying…”

What followed was a long pause. After about a minute, the police officer inferred the rest of the story from the injuries Dresdin had sustained:

“You… grabbed his gun?” The officer’s tone was soft and delicate.

Dresdin chuckled as he remembered he was mid-story. “Yeah, I guess I did… The only thing I remember after that were four loud ‘pops’ and… waking up here. I can’t recall the important parts, sorry.”

“No! That’s perfectly fine! I think the rest of the story is already told by the scene and the other witnesses. Rose, I just want to run the rest of this by you. If anything is incorrect, could you speak up?”

Rose's eyes were watering up as she relived the incident through Dresdin’s retelling. She rushed to wipe her tears and straightened herself for the police officer.

“L-Lucario! [ Y-yes, sir! ]” she nodded dutifully.

Officer Ainsworth lifted his notes and read off the first draft of his report:

“...The victim grabbed the assailant’s gun. A Weavile attacked the victim from behind, blinding him and knocking him to the ground. Robber #1 proceeded to discharge his weapon on the victim. The other Pokemon attacked the victim’s Lucario, nicknamed ‘Rose’. Four shots were fired. Three bullets struck the victim while the fourth missed. Rose struck Robber #1 in the head, shattering his skull and killing him instantly. Rose severely injured all three of the assailant’s Pokemon, incapacitating all of them and leaving them unconscious at the scene. The Mightyena and the Toxicroak were later recovered by police, but the Weavile had died from internal bleeding by the time police arrived at the scene. Robber #2 and Robber #3 escaped during the struggle. Rose proceeded to carry the victim 2.6 miles to the nearest Pokemon Center, where the staff rendered first aid and called for an ambulance.”

The officer looked up from his notes. “Is that all correct?”

Rose nodded slowly, mortified.

“Perfect! Just a couple last questions and I’ll get out of your hair… Did you have any weapons on you at the time of the attack?”

“Uh… no?”

“No worries. We just found a pocket knife at the scene, we just wanted to make sure it belonged to one of the assailants… Lastly, was the sunset the ONLY thing distracting Rose before the attack?”

Dresdin could feel Rose’s grasp seize up at the question. It had an implication that he didn’t catch, but it was obvious that it terrified her.

“W-what is that supposed to mean?”

Detective Ainsworth raised an eyebrow at Dresdin’s odd reaction.

“Well, Lucario are famous for having great awareness, because they are the only Pokemon that can sense aura. It’s just a bit strange that a sunset would distract her so much that she wasn’t able to sense the attackers surrounding you…”

Dresdin could feel the guilt and panic through Rose’s touch. The forepaws tightening around his hand prompted Dresdin to defend his partner.

“You can’t expect anyone to be on guard all the time.” Dresdin’s voice grew unnaturally smooth and calm. 

The officer could sense he struck a nerve.

“Excuse me. I wasn’t trying to suggest anything. We just like to be thorough when there are fatalities involved.”

“I understand… but yes, it was a very pretty sunset.” Dresdin asserted.

Officer Ainsworth could feel the atmosphere of the room turning sour, and he was thankful to be out of questions. 

“Right, thank you very much for your time! I’ll leave my card with the nurse, if you have any questions.”

The officer bowed to excuse himself. Dresdin could not see him do so, and Rose was too horrified by his last question to notice.

The door closed and Rose was left alone to look at what she’d done. Even if the officer wasn’t trying to cast blame, he was right. Any competent Lucario would sense danger like that a mile away... All of this happened because of her. If only she had been paying attention in that moment, she could have warned him, she could have protected him. Dresdin was permanently disfigured… he may never see again, and it was her fault. 

Rose’s hands slid from her owner’s. She stumbled backwards as her trembling forepaws covered her leaking eyes. The blood that soaked her fur revolted in a new way now that she realized she was the one who spilled it. 

“Rose…” Dresdin soothed. Her terrified silence made it obvious what was upsetting her, and he needed to remind her of the truth: “It wasn’t your fault…”

Dresdin faced her… but couldn’t look at her. He never would again.

The weight of guilt was too much for the Lucario's shaky legs to carry. She collapsed to her knees on the linoleum floor, tears silently rolling down her face.

“Rose, please...” Dresdin begged. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Rose didn’t respond. She knew her owner was lying.

Chapter Text

Mother’s have a way of making everything alright. Dresdin and Rose were, by all measures, ‘adults’. But even adults can get knocked off their feet. Whenever life happens, Moms are always there to help you find your footing. Leandra Sinclair was no different.

Although Leandra wasn’t Rose’s real Mother, it never mattered growing up, and it didn’t matter now. Both Dresdin and Rose heaved a sigh of relief when Mom arrived.

For the few weeks she was in town, Leandra took care of everything that Dresdin and Rose could not. Dresdin’s previous employer needed to be informed of the incident; the hospital needed to be paid and future appointments planned; the small house she previously sold to them needed to be prepared to accommodate its newly blind occupant; the pantry needed to be supplied with food; disability benefits needed to be applied for; lastly, some comforting hugs needed to be given to her anxious children.

...But she couldn’t stay forever. She had a job in the Kanto region she needed to return to. Rose and Dresdin needed to relearn to take care of themselves by the time she left. 

Dresdin was completely blind now. He needed to grow comfortable feeling his way around with a white cane and holding his balance without the stability that vision offered. Like a good mother, Leandra kept Dresdin on his feet and practicing, regardless of if he felt like it.

Rose, on the other hand, had a set of chores to learn that Dresdin could no longer do by himself. Leandra instructed the Lucario about how to do laundry and cook some simple meals. Rose had been a faithful companion through Dresdin’s childhood, but now, she had to be his caretaker.

The Lucario bit her tongue as her stubby fingers wrestled with a pair of socks. The kitchen table supported a pile of clean laundry, and Rose was having a particularly difficult time folding them away. 

There was a reason she’d never helped her owner with laundry before. Her forepaws were built for bashing and striking. Twisting socks into neat little scrunches was a job for more dexterous digits, and Rose grew frustrated by the difficulty of such a simple task. 

The fighting-type’s ears flicked up at the sound of the front door opening and she heaved a sigh of relief. She was eager for a break, or at least a different chore.

“Rose? Can you help me with the groceries?” Leandra called from the entryway.

“ Yes, Ma’am! ” The Lucario tossed the half-knotted socks back onto the pile and hustled to hold the door open for Mrs. Sinclair. Leandra walked by with a large cardboard tray of apples and set them on the kitchen counter.

Rose knew that this was the last delivery of groceries that they would receive from their mother, and it was likely the largest. The Lucario hustled outside to find the rental car fully loaded with food. All were foods that were very similar to the tray of apples: easy to prepare, long shelf life, somewhat healthy. Rose wasn’t comfortable going to the store by herself, and Dresdin needed more time to adjust to his disability before he could accompany her. Leandra understood this, and would leave the pantries full for her kids to ease into shopping for themselves again.

Rose lifted a large box of oatmeal and carried it inside. This time, it was Leandra’s turn to hold the door open for the encumbered Lucario.

Dresdin stood at the base of the staircase just beyond the front door. His left eyelid was healing properly. Stitches still held it closed and the eye underneath was dysfunctional, but the bone-deep gash across his face was sealing into a scar.

His right eye was not so lucky. It had been ripped open during the incident, and needed to be removed entirely. His empty eye socket was covered with a thick cotton pad, held in place by tightly wrapped gauze. An acrylic prosthetic eye was being made to fill the empty space, but it would not be ready until their next follow-up visit.

The prominent scarring, his broken eyes, and his crippling disability would forever be reminders of Rose’s carelessness. Every time the Lucario looked at her owner, her stomach churned at the knowledge that she did all of it to him.

Even with half of his face covered in gauze, Rose could see the distress painted on Dresdin’s visage. His hands grasped the guardrail, perpetually terrified of losing his balance. His posture was slumped and weak, lips drooped in a listless frown. 

He could hear Rose and Leandra rushing about to unload the car… but he couldn’t help them. He was useless.

It hurt Rose to see him like this. Even if there was nothing she could do to cheer him up, she needed to comfort him:

“ Hey… Are you ok? ” Rose soothed.

Dresdin didn’t speak right away.

“Is Mom leaving?” he finally mumbled.

Rose’s ears folded down. She set the box of oatmeal on the counter before responding.

“ Not quite yet… but soon. ”

“Mm…”

Leandra walked through the front door with more food. She noticed the disquiet look on Rose and the discouraged ennui on her son. The middle-aged woman rolled her eyes as she walked past her children. Leandra had caught the two reflecting negative emotions off of each other for weeks now. Like any good mother, she rushed to break up the tension:

“I hope you two don’t plan on moping around and feeling sorry for each other all day!”

Rose perked up at Leandra’s interjection. It always amazed her how the human could be so apathetic about her son's condition… or at least, she was apathetic on the outside. Leandra’s aura told a different story. On the inside, she did feel badly for Dresdin; she was his mother, after all. However, she understood that sulking didn’t help with anything, so she didn’t allow him to. Dresdin needed to keep his chin up. His attitude was what dictated the quality of his life at this point, and some motherly scolding was the correct way to yank his spirits out of the mud.

Leandra set her load of provisions down on the kitchen counter, and folded her arms at her silent kids. No response.

“Rose, be sure to take him on a nice long walk after I leave. I have a feeling someone is a bit unmotivated today...”

Dresdin furrowed his brow.

“ Y-yes, ma’am! ” Rose nodded dutifully.

Leandra smirked and made her way back outside for another load of groceries. Rose took that as a cue to follow her back to the car.

Leandra gathered several smaller items from the trunk and stacked them into an easy-to-carry tower. Rose stood back and waited to be handed the pile of goods. Leandra lifted the stack by the lowest item… but paused, and reset the food in the trunk.

“I trusted you to take care of him.”

Rose’s heart stopped. She froze in shock, disbelief that Leandra would feel the need to state something like that out loud.

“ W-what? ” Rose peeped.

Leandra turned to the mortified Pokemon and raised an eyebrow. 

“I said: ‘I’m trusting you to take care of him’. I know it hurts to see him like this, and I know it can be hard to get him out of bed to practice moving around. I just wanted you to know that I’m counting on you, and I really appreciate it.”

Rose blinked a couple times. Did she imagine that? Or did Leandra correct herself the second time? They both knew deep down that Dresdin was blind because of her. Either explanation was possible, but Rose needed to believe the former. She couldn’t bear the thought that Leandra resented her enough to say it to her face.

“ Y-yeah! Of course! ” 

Leandra smiled and handed off the pile of groceries to the Lucario. 

The ladies unloaded the last of the provisions. Each load they carried in, they walked past a discouraged Dresdin waiting at the bottom of the stairs. 

He stood there out of respect. His family was doing all the work for him. Since he couldn’t help, the least he could do was be present.

Leandra gradually developed a hustle in her step. When all the food was inside, she rushed to sort the perishables into the refrigerator. Her flight was leaving soon, and she was running out of time. The growing haste prompted the mother to start worrying about her departure. She wouldn’t be back for several months and her concern for her children began to overflow.

“What time is your follow up visit?”

“2pm, tomorrow…”

“Rose, you remember the way there?”

“ Yes, Ma’am ”

“...And you both know my cell phone number, right?”

If Dresdin still had functioning eyes, he would’ve rolled them.

“We will be fine, Ma…”

“I know! I just…”

“How much trouble can we possibly get in six months?” Dresdin’s response was joking and sarcastic, delivered with a smile.

“Knowing you two, a lot~” Leandra smirked back.

Rose’s heart swelled at the interaction. The previous weeks have been devoid of banter and energy. It was nice that the last moments before seeing Leandra off were reminiscent of when they were kids, back when everything was alright.

“Anyways… I have a plane to catch.” Leandra finally spoke after a warm pause.

“Right…”

The mother gave her son one last lingering hug before turning to Rose. Leandra set her hand under the Lucario’s chin and offered the fighting-type an encouraging wink.

‘Keep your chin up. I’m counting on you,’ the wink conveyed.

Rose straightened herself and nodded with confidence. She could do this.

Leandra pulled the Lucario into a thankful hug. Having run out of time, Leandra showed herself out and began her journey back to the Kanto region…

Dresdin and Rose stood in the entryway long after the door closed, allowing the finality of their independence to set in. Neither of them said anything for several minutes, leaving an atmosphere of silence and dread festering between them. 

Rose’s ears flicked up at a familiar cell phone ringing from Dresdin’s bedroom. 

Dresdin’s first instinct was to hustle upstairs to answer it, but he quickly remembered his lack of mobility and balance. He couldn’t make it to his room in time. Thankfully, Rose was on her toes, and didn’t make him ask for help.

“ Mom probably forgot something~ ” the fighting-type tittered before hopping up the stairs and into Dresdin’s room. Unfortunately, the portrait that awaited her on the caller-ID was not Leandra’s. It was a familiar face, but one Rose never wanted to see, least of all, now. The Lucario’s stubby fingers could poke the green button, and had it been Leandra, Rose would have no issue answering… but Dresdin needed to take this call. 

Rose left the bedroom clasping the still-ringing phone. She carried it back down the stairs to her confused owner.

“ It’s Samantha …”

Dresdin’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t excited to talk to his girlfriend either. Regardless, he held out his hand and accepted the phone from his partner, bracing himself for a conversation that he never wanted to have.

“Hey, Sam…” 

Even without the phone on speaker, Rose’s sharp ears could hear Samantha’s angry voice demanding to know why Dresdin hadn’t returned her texts, why he hadn’t called in weeks.

Rose retreated back up the stairs, partially out of courtesy and partially out of discomfort. The Lucario never liked Samantha very much. That human had an abrasive way of voicing her opinions, of which she had many. This aversion to Samantha may only be because Rose was the complete opposite in temperament. However, Dresdin’s sour expression suggested he felt the same distaste for Samantha’s ‘passion’ at this time.

Dresdin and Rose shared a small house. It was a two-story structure with a kitchen and a living room on the first floor, and a couple bedrooms on the second. Rose needed to give Dresdin some privacy, but in such a small house, she was limited on where she could go.

She tip-toed into her bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her, leaving Dresdin to explain what happened to Samantha.

Rose always occupied a weird place in the Sinclair’s family. The fact that she had her own bedroom was evidence of that. Most humans condense their Pokemon inside a Pokeball when it isn’t convenient to have them around, but Rose had never experienced such a thing. She wasn’t even sure Dresdin still had her Pokeball. 

Leandra didn’t treat her like a Pokemon either. The middle-aged woman listened and learned Rose’s grunted pokespeak just as Dresdin did. Leandra spoke to her like she was an adoptive daughter or an honored guest. Rose never understood what she did to deserve such treatment. 

Rose didn’t want her own bedroom. She didn’t wear clothes and she didn’t need privacy like humans did. The colorblind Lucario had no creative urges or need for personalization. The walls of her room were a blank white and her bedsheets were a dull gray. Her room was a blank canvas, with the exception of some framed photos atop an empty dresser. 

Even a simple girl like her could appreciate souvenirs from the life she was gifted. The memories captured in those pictures always made Rose smile… at least, they used to.

Rose scowled at the framed pictures across the room. She began to wish she had more decorations. There would be more objects to avert her eyes to, more distractions from the photos that seemed to stare at her from atop the dresser.

Rose frowned as she approached her arrangement of photos. The pictures of better days taunted her with examples of happiness she would never experience again. The day she evolved… The day they moved into this house… and the day Dresdin adopted her…

Rose paused at that picture for a long time. She lifted the frame from the bunch to admire it. It used to be her favorite in the collection, the first picture of her new life. 

Rose was hatched in a Pokemon Daycare along with her siblings. Out of the group of eight Riolu, she was the only girl; she was also the only one with a ‘Timid’ nature. The workers at the Daycare knew that didn’t bode well for her chances at getting adopted, and soon, Rose understood that too. One by one, her more aggressive or outgoing brothers were scooped up by trainers looking to start or improve a competitive team. Before long, she was the only one of her siblings left. 

Several years went by, and she started to wonder if there was something wrong with her; she wondered if battling was the only value Pokemon had to humans; she wondered if she’d live in that Daycare forever.

Once every couple days, the Daycare staff would show a small group of children into the outdoor Pokemon enclosure. They were all about ten years old, old enough to own a Pokemon, but somehow ineligible to receive a classic starter from a Pokemon professor. The Pokemon who wanted to be adopted were always waiting eagerly at the door, bubbling with enthusiasm and determined to meet their new owner. Recently, a female Riolu found herself hanging back from the crowd. She didn’t want to compete for attention anymore, and she couldn’t hope to match the energy and confidence of the Daycare’s fresher faces. All she wanted to do was find a quiet spot at the edge of the enclosure and wait for everyone to leave.

The fighting-type paced along the fenceline. Her forepaw slid along the vertical boards of the wooden barrier. Her ears twitched at the sounds of their guests in the distance, the laughter of human children and the spirited greetings of the adoptable Pokemon. 

As time passed, the chatter calmed as some of the human’s brought their selected partner’s inside. The Riolu smiled wistfully as she wondered which of her acquaintances would be absent this evening, off to start a life on their own Pokemon adventure. She was happy for them, but didn’t have the stomach to watch them leave. She kept her eyes on the wooden fence that she traced her fingers along, wondering what it was like beyond but content with never knowing.

The fighting-type flinched at the snap of a nearby branch. Her ears flicked up, and her head shot towards the creator of the sudden noise. The Riolu’s gaze met that of a young boy, a boy she later knew as Dresdin. His eyes were as wide and surprised as hers, only noticing her the same moment she heard him.

The two stared at each other for several heartbeats. The boy clasped a small bag of goodies anxiously against his chest. The plastic bag contained a curated collection of sweets provided by the staff to share with the Pokemon that the children met. It didn’t take a keen eye to see that all the treats still remained in the unopened bag. The boy’s gait was directed slightly away from the Riolu, suggesting that he too was retreating from all the commotion, unaware that any Pokemon were back here.

Even though the boy didn’t intend to bother the Riolu, he considered offering one of the confections to her like the staff instructed him to. The lonely fighting-type was much less intimidating than the big crowd of Pokemon he had just escaped. If he had the guts to interact with any Pokemon today, it would probably be her. 

The boy opened his mouth to say something, but he hesitated. ‘She was probably far away from the main group because she didn’t want to be bothered’ he thought to himself. After another brief pause, the boy finally spoke:

“S-sorry,” he peeped before turning and leaving. 

The fighting-type’s brow furrowed as the boy walked away. She wasn’t yet skilled in sensing aura, but in that brief eye contact, she saw… herself. That boy wasn’t an over-competitive trainer aiming to be the world champion. He didn’t know what kind of Pokemon she was or what she evolved into, and he didn’t care.  Those bashful brown eyes of his were only looking for a friend. That’s all the Riolu ever wanted either.

So she ran after him. At the time, she couldn’t quite explain why she grabbed his hand and refused to let go, but she did. In the years that followed, she thought this was the best decision she had ever made. Today, however, Rose knew it was a terrible mistake.

Tears welled in Rose’s eyes as the boy in the photo looked back at her.

If only that little kid knew what would happen if he adopted her. If only he knew that Rose would let those timid brown eyes get ripped from his face, he would have left her alone. Rose would give anything to warn that boy, to let him walk away so she could rot in that Daycare forever. But now… now she was stuck with the consequences of her carelessness… they both were.

“Rose?”

The Lucario’s ears twitched at Dresdin calling her from the staircase. Rose slapped the framed photo face-down on the dresser, unable to look at it any longer.

Dresdin felt around the hallway until he found Rose’s closed door. He knocked softly, unsure if she wanted to be alone. Rose took a moment to calm herself, allowing no vestiges of her tears to dampen her voice. 

“ I’m right here, master. ” she called back with a forced calm. “ How was your chat with- ”

When Rose opened her bedroom door, she found that Dresdin was just as upset as her. His lips were twisted into a frown and his posture was weak and slouched.

“ H-how is Sam doing? ”

Dresdin shrugged.

“Fine, I guess… She said she’d give me a call back later…”

Dresdin’s response made Rose’s blood boil.

He didn’t want to talk about it. The Lucario could only imagine why, but had several strong suspicions. A girl like Samantha wouldn’t have much interest in dating a blind man. Upon hearing about the accident, that bitch probably let her disappointment shine through. Maybe she acted polite about it, feigned sympathy, but only superficially. Rose wished Samantha would have the courtesy to break up with Dresdin if that was the case… but that wouldn’t happen. As much as Samantha loved to talk, she didn’t have the decency or honesty to offer closure like that.

Rose took a deep breath and straightened up. Leandra wasn’t here anymore to lift the mood. That was Rose’s job now. The Lucario was the only one who could reintroduce some cheer and energy into her owner’s day. It didn't matter how upset she was or for what reason, she needed to be strong, just like Leandra.

“ Hey~ ” Rose grabbed her partner's hand. “ Even if she doesn’t call back, I don’t think you'd be missing anything. If she’s going to act like a child about your situation, she’s not worth your time! ”

Dresdin heaved a polite chuckle. “Yeah…” It was obvious that he wouldn’t get over Samantha so easily, but he was thankful for Rose’s encouragement.

“ Now, come on! ” The Lucario tugged at her owner's hand, leading him back down the stairs. “ I promised Mom that you’d get a long walk in today! ”

Dresdin stumbled after her. The sudden movement jostled him out of his pensive sorrow.

“Ok, Ok! Let me find my white cane first!” 

—

It was important for Dresdin to practice moving around. Exercise was necessary to rebuild his strength after his long stay in the hospital. More importantly, he needed to get the hang of feeling his way around with a white cane. It wasn’t enough to move around the house, where obstacles are familiar and memorized. He needed to walk around town and practice feeling what was in front of him. He needed to tap at obstacles with his cane and discern how to avoid them. All Rose had to do was supervise and let him learn.

Just watching, however, felt like a punishment. Every time Dresdin bumped into an obstacle or tripped over an uneven surface, Rose could feel it. She squeezed her fists and clenched her teeth after any misstep, unable to help him.

Rose and Dresdin slowly made their way past their neighbors, many of which were mowing their lawns or pulling weeds on their property. Rose knew them as friendly people who waved at familiar passers by, but something was off today. Many of them didn’t wave at all, pretending not to notice the Pokemon and her disabled owner. Those who did wave, sported a sympathetic smile or a look of pity on their face, sorry for what happened to the bandaged boy. 

Some of their eyes lingered on Dresdin as they wondered if Rose was the one who injured him. They glanced at the sharp spikes on the back of her forepaws, and imagined a situation where they clipped the human’s eyes. Those that knew Rose didn’t speculate for very long. A soft-hearted Pokemon like her couldn’t reasonably do that to her owner… If only they knew the truth, that it was her fault, none of them would be quite so forgiving. Rose furrowed her brow and cast her gaze down in shame, forced to parade around her greatest failure.

Dresdin did… ok, all things considered. He tapped his cane back and forth like he’d been taught, and managed to avoid benches and trash cans just fine. The swing of his cane was a bit wide, and he traipsed along like he was traversing a balance beam. It wasn’t graceful, but he managed.

A mother and her young daughter approached the duo, walking in the opposite direction. Rose noticed the mother eyeing Dresdin’s wide swings and showed a bit of hesitation about passing him. Rose waved her forepaw at her waist, a subtle gesture that asked the two strangers to give her owner a bit more space. 

The mother guided her daughter to the outer edge of the sidewalk. The lady smiled at Rose as they passed, silent encouragement and gratitude.

The tip of Dresdin’s cane narrowly missed the trunk of a decorative oak tree in the sidewalk. By the time the cane swung back in the opposite direction, it struck high on the handle and didn’t give Dresdin enough time to react. The human walked hard into the tree, smacking his nose and recoiling back. He stumbled backwards and caught himself on a tree branch for balance.

“Haha, wow…” he groaned as he straightened himself, holding his crushed nose and feeling for any blood that may be pouring out.

Rose rushed to her owner, but she wasn’t the first to speak.

“Are you alright!?!” The woman they just passed heard the impact and ran over to offer assistance. 

“I think s-” Dresdin began to say.

“Lucario! [ He’s fine! ]” Rose snapped, grabbing her owner by the hand and helping him up. The fighting-type could feel the woman's aura, the pity she felt. She saw her owner as weak and helpless. Her low judgment of Dresdin burned in Rose’s chest with a mixture of anger and shame.

The woman didn’t understand the Lucario, but the Pokemon’s harsh tone and forced smile spoke for themselves.

“A-are you sure?” 

“Lucario! [ Yep! Very sure, Thank you! ]” Rose yanked her confused human’s hand, dragging him up the road and away from the confrontation.

“Who was that?” Dresdin asked once they got a bit further away. 

“ No one we know… ” Rose quavered. Dresdin paused as he heard her voice. 

“Rose? What’s wrong?”

Rose squeezed her owner’s hand with both paws as they continued walking.

“ Can we just… walk like this for the rest of the way? ” she peeped. 

Dresdin understood why she would ask something like that, her outburst at that stranger made it obvious. If he was holding her hand, he didn’t have to tap around and crash into stuff; he didn’t have to collect condolences from passersby. It would just be a normal walk, and they might be able to salvage some enjoyment out of it.

Dresdin smiled. “That sounds nice, actually.”

The duo paused to fold up Dresdin’s white cane and began their walk home, hand clasped in forepaw. With his trusted Pokemon guiding his path, the tension and uncertainty of their stroll disappeared. They both regained their natural walking cadences as they sauntered home together, Dresdin didn’t have to fear unseen obstacles, and Rose didn’t have to watch him crash into them.

Dresdin tilted his head upwards. The sun was out today. Its radiance graced the parts of his face not covered by bandages. His skin had grown very pale over the last month of being indoors. The sunlight stung a little, but the breeze was there to whisk any excess heat away.

“It sure is nice out today…” he mused. His lack of vision kept the full beauty of his surroundings hidden from him, but for the first time, he felt… ok with that.

“ It is… ” Rose responded. Despite the sincerity of his comment, the Lucario couldn’t ignore the ceaseless gnawing at the back of her mind. Dresdin’s world had become so small after she failed to protect him, only the size of what he could reach out and touch.

The fighting-type couldn’t imagine what being blind was like; her anatomy made it impossible. In complete darkness, Rose could sense everything around her using the four sensitive appendages on the back of her head. Aura reflected off surfaces just like light did, and a clear understanding of her surroundings never left her. 

Even if her partner learned to accept his disability, Rose wasn’t sure if she ever could. Especially when she had been born with two ways to see… However, the existence of her ability did whisper a silly idea in her head…

Rose guided her owner to a stop.

“Are we home?” 

“ Yeah… ”

The two paused. Rose stared at the small house as Dresdin enjoyed one last breath of the refreshing breeze.

“Thank you, Rose. The second half of that walk was nice… I needed that.” Dresdin smiled at his partner. 

“ Sure… uh… ” Rose paused. “Would… you do me a favor in return?” she peeped. Her grip tightened around Dresdin’s hand. 

“That, eh… depends on the favor.” 

“ I’m s-… I know that this sounds-… ” Rose kept cutting herself short, choking on her words as embarrassment set in.

“Rose?”

“ Please, don’t take this the wron-… ” She paused again as she reconsidered her wording. There really was no easy way to ask this.

Rose’s heart was beating out of her chest as she hastily reformed her pitch. She was about to make a fool out of herself, and likely insult her owner in the process. This was a selfish request, one that did more to ease her nerves than it did to help her owner adjust to his new life… but she couldn’t live like this. She wanted Dresdin back, the old Dresdin, and this felt like the only way.

Dresdin, however, spoke first.

“I understand, Rose, and it’s ok…” The Lucario perked up in confusion. “I can’t take care of you anymore, and I know I’m pretty hard to watch. If you don’t think you can do this, it’s ok. I don’t blame you. You can go live with Mom or something, and she could probably sign me up for some sort of assisted living service…”

“ S-stop, ” Rose commanded, tears welling in her eyes.

“I’m just saying… Sam doesn’t want anything to do with me… and I understand if you don’t eith-”

Dresdin’s sentence was cut off by a forepaw, forcefully shoved against his mouth.

“ I said stop! ” The crying Pokemon growled. “ Don’t you ever say anything so horrible ever again… ” she seethed. Rose wasn’t angry at Dresdin, just angry that his condition would make him spew such nonsense, angry that Samantha would make him feel so worthless.

Dresdin backed away from her silencing paw.

“W-what is it then? What on earth could be so hard to say?

“ I just… ”

The Lucario squeezed her partner’s hand. Her hesitation was concerning Dresdin, and she needed to hurry and spit it out. Rose gathered her resolve and regurgitated the words that stuck in her throat.

“ I-I need… to teach you how to see again… Please. ”

A different emotion washed over Dresdin’s face, replacing his despair with… something. Confusion? Intrigue? Gratitude? The Lucario couldn’t quite tell.

Rose was squeezing Dresdin’s hand so hard that his fingers were turning purple. After a short pause, he began to chuckle, then to laugh. 

Dresdin faced his partner with the warmest smile Rose had seen in weeks, a smile so radiant that Rose’s ears flattened in surprise.

“Ok,” he finally said.

“... Ok? ” Rose repeated, awestruck that it was that easy. She expected some reasonable resistance, a very true observation that that was the stupidest thing he ever heard, maybe a list of reasons why that would never work.

That was the thing, though. Rose had gotten herself so worked up; Dresdin knew that any argument was useless. It didn’t matter what he said, Rose wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer. 

“Ok,” he confirmed. “Well, ‘Ok’ on one condition…”

“ Anything! ” 

Dresdin smirked. There was that ferocity he was expecting. He put his free hand on his partner’s shoulder and tried to relay the same earnest tone that Rose was showing.

“I do think it’s very sweet that you want to help, but I’m not built like you, Rose. Just… Don’t get your hopes too high, ok?”

“ I have no expectations whatsoever! ” Rose stated. This was a blatant lie. A more honest statement would be: ‘I will say whatever I have to to get you to agree’. Dresdin sighed. That was the best he was going to get for now.

“Right then… When is our first lesson, master sensei?” Dresdin’s lighthearted teasing went completely ignored as Rose’s face lit up with hope. She grabbed her partner’s other hand and yanked him inside. 

“Right now!” she exclaimed, dragging her helpless student behind her.

Chapter Text

Dresdin stood awkwardly in his bedroom. Rose was staring at him a few feet away, but she hadn’t said anything for over a minute. 

“Well?”

“ I’m thinking… Give me a minute… ”

“I thought you had a few ideas?”

“ I thought I would still be arguing with you in the driveway! I didn't plan this far ahead… ”

Another pause.

“ How would you teach a deaf person how to hear? ” Rose finally asked.

“Well… You aren’t teaching me how to see. You’re teaching me how to sense aura. It might help if we treat them like different things?”

Rose closed her eyes and rubbed her temples like she was nursing a headache.

“ That's the problem… ” Rose mused. “ It’s so natural to me, it IS just like seeing… ”

A few more moments passed as Rose struggled to imagine her aura as a foreign object, and not a part of who she was. Finally, she delivered her final verdict:

“ Take off your shirt. ”

“Goodness, Rose~” Dresdin snickered. “You could've just been more forward from the start~”

Rose punched him hard in the arm, throwing him off balance. The human stumbled back and caught himself on the wall behind him.

“Wow,” he grunted. He rotated his shoulder a couple times to dispel the cramping pain in his deltoid. “No punches pulled… Got it…”

“ Students don’t learn if you baby them. You take this seriously, and you can dodge next time. Shirt off. ”

Rose set her forepaws on her hips as she waited for her owner to remove his tee shirt.

“What did I tell you about expectations?” Dresdin asked as he cast his clothing aside.

Rose sighed. “ All living things give off aura… and I give off a ton of it, especially when I try to. Even with the lowest of expectations, I know you can sense me. So let's start with that. ”

The Lucario rested her forepaws on her partner’s bare pectorals. Her paws began to glow with a soft, blue energy. A gentle flame that warmed the human’s chest and sank under his skin.

“ How does that feel? Too much? ”

“It’s…eh…” Dresdin paused, ashamed of how dull it felt. “M-maybe a little more?”

“ Sure~ ” Rose chirped. The radiant aura flickering around her paws intensified. “ Just… ‘take it in’ for now… ” She held her paws against Dresdin’s chest for a few minutes, maintaining the glow of her aura and allowing her pupil to study the sensation.

Dresdin had felt this warmth several times before. Rose was happy to share with him whenever he was curious, but this was the first time he was expected to learn anything from it. Her aura sank deep into his chest, an ethereal presence that seemed to warm him from the inside.

“ I… need you to teach me a few things for the first day. Alright? ” Rose rubbed her owner’s chest, breaking his focus on the magical aura.

“Um, ok?”

“ You and I obviously sense aura differently, so I have no idea what it feels like for you when I do this… Could you try and put what you’re feeling now into words? ”

Dresdin raised his hands and held his partner's paws against his chest. He took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, and slowly exhaled before answering:

“Well… It’s warm?”

“ Good! What kind of ‘warm’? ”

“Oof… uh… ‘What kind of warm’...” he repeated the question to himself in confusion.

“ The warmth from a fire is much different from the warmth of a stove or a comfy blanket. One flickers and ebbs, the other two are constant. The first two will burn if you get too close, but the last one is always pleasant and inviting.”

“Gosh… it’s not really like any of those…”

“ That’s ok! Just think about it, and tell me anything that comes to mind!”

“That might take a while. How long do I have to think?”

Rose giggled. “ You’re doing this favor for me, dummy. I have all day~ ”

Dresdin smiled and focused. ‘What kind of warm’ he thought to himself. The way her paws felt right now first reminded him of the cozy blanket she just mentioned. It was soothing and hypnotic, something he could curl up and fall asleep in… but that wasn’t quite it. He’s seen aura do a lot of damage in concentrated bursts. It could shatter boulders and send Pokemon opponents flying backwards. In a way, it wasn’t comparable to any heat at all. It could be compressed, like a gas, and could explode from releasing the pressure. When dissipated and weak like this, it was pleasantly warm. However, it still maintained a glimmer of that violent power hidden in the way it flickered and ebbed against his chest. 

Dresdin peeled one of Rose’s paws off of his chest and set it on his cheek. He held it there for a few moments, but it felt… weaker on more sensitive skin, almost like its warmth didn’t affect the skin at all, but the flesh underneath. He guided her forepaw back down and cradled her glowing paw in his grasp, setting one hand on top and one on bottom.

Rose smirked as her owner played with her, “ Notice anything?~” she hummed.

“Well, it’s not actually heat…” Dresdin hovered his hands a couple inches above and below her paw. “Otherwise, it would feel like it’s rising… but both of my hands feel equally warm…”

“ Good! What else? ” 

“I warned you this would take a while~” he sang.

Rose snickered. “ Right! Sorry! Shush~ ”

Dresdin reset her glowing paw on his chest. After a minute, he noticed something odd about the ethereal flame. He took a deep breath, holding his partner's forepaws firmly against his skin. He pursed his lips as he exhaled. The aura didn’t do anything weird in response to his breathing…

He took another long breath and held it in. He pressed his thumb into the side of his throat, finding his pulse. Another long pause persisted until Dredin needed to breathe, breaking his focus on his heart rate. That wasn’t it either… Dresdin took a moment to piece the clues together.

“Hang on…” he muttered as he wrapped a hand around his Lucario’s hip.

Rose’s ears flicked up. 

“ What did you… EEP! ”

A thrill of tingles rushed up Rose’s back as her owner pressed his ear against her chest. His hand slowly slid up her back to steady her torso as he listened to her body. She struggled to keep her focus on her aura-infused palms as her cheeks flushed with blood. Her racing heart began to beat even faster when it realized it was being observed. The fighting-type tried to calm her body and allow her owner to explore her aura, but the sudden intimacy made it difficult.

After several moments, Dresdin finally spoke:

“Hmmm… I think I have a good description of it. It’s not a ‘conductive’ heat, like a stove or a flame. It’s definitely more of a ‘radiant’ heat, kind of like the sun. I don’t feel it purely on top of my skin, it goes through my body a bit, like a piercing light. It also… flickers or pulses a little. I thought it was matching my heart beat at first, but no…” Dresdin paused to listen to Rose’s racing heart some more. “It flickers to match yours.”

The human released his partner and stood back up

“ Y-yeah… it is my life force after all… ” Rose closed her eyes and tried to imagine what her owner felt. “Like the sun, huh?”

“What does it feel like to you?”

“ Mmmm, kind of like hot water, ” she hummed as she looked at her forepaws.

Dresdin laughed. “Hot water?”

“ Yeah… It’s silky and smooth… and I can feel it flowing just below my skin, alongside my blood. I just need to tell my muscles to shove it around in my body. If I make it all rush to my fingertips it just spills out like:” Rose let out a little flicker of aura to demonstrate. “ Poof! ” she chirped.

“We feel it completely differently…” Dresdin deadpanned.

Rose patted the human’s shoulder dismissively. ” It won’t be a problem! Your description gave me plenty of ideas to work with! You’ll be able to see in no time! ”

“Oh yeah? like what?” Dresdin folded his arms in playful curiosity.

Rose sauntered out of the bedroom. “ You’re just going to have to wait until tomorrow's lesson~ ” she teased. “ Class dismissed~ ”

“Gosh, what time is it?”

Rose peaked back around the doorway. “ Time to get some sleep . Does my little student need help with his pajamas? ”

“No, thank you, Rose.” Dresdin chuckled. That was one of the only things he could still manage on his own.

“ Ok, just call if you need anything~ ”

Dresdin sat down on his bed. He listened to Rose walk into her room across the hallway and flick her bedroom light on. This evening was the first time Rose acted like her old self in what felt like years. For once, it didn’t feel like there was a massive elephant in the room. Rather, the activity of playing with Rose’s aura made the ‘elephant’ a part of the game. It was… fun.

Even if it was a hopeless endeavor, he found himself excited to see what plans Rose would cook up. He didn’t believe that he would ever be able to sense aura like his companion did, but as long as he got to see more of ‘old Rose’, he would try his very best. His shirt was already off, and he doubted Rose left his light on. All that was left was for him to flop back and get comfortable. He apparently had a busy day tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Dresdin peered up at the most spectacular sunset, the same one he’d seen a hundred times over. Part of him knew this was a dream, knew what was about to happen, but the dreary haze of slumber kept him from truly realizing it.

A really crummy thing about losing your sight is that your dreams are still filled with visions, at least for a while. Your imagination remembers what objects and people look like. It remembers the beauty of color and the magnitude of far off landmarks. Your brain is happy to taunt you with these memories for the sake of nightly entertainment.

Dresdin’s dreams were the only place left he could ‘see’ Rose again. He only wished he could dream about her in any other setting than the heart-stopping terror of this moment. 

“ Now that’s a sunset~ ” Rose mused as she marveled at the sky.

“Yeah…” Dresdin responded. He was merely a spectator in this dream. He couldn’t grab Rose and run to safety with her… He was condemned to repeat the same words he said to her that day. 

Dresdin looked at Rose, she was kneading her forepaws and looking off. She had something to say, but was gathering the nerve to say it. The first time he saw this anxious fidget, he thought it was merely charming. However, when Dresdin revisited this memory each night, he understood why Rose was distracted at that moment. She was formulating her words, and couldn’t sense the armed monsters surrounding them.

“ Master?... Can I ask you something? ”

“Of course, Rose. What’s up?”

“ I just… feel like we don’t spend much time together after you met Sam… ”

Dresdin chuckled. “Weren’t you the one who encouraged me to get a girlfriend?”

“ Yeah, I know, but… I didn’t realize she would take up all of your freetime… ” 

Dresdin pursed his lips. Rose was the last one he wanted to neglect… but Sam might feel the same if he started blowing her off to spend time with his Pokemon. 

“Maybe we could hike up as a group! Do you think Samantha would like it up here?”

Rose paused. Dresdin noticed.

“What?”

“ Could you… not take her up here? ”

“Oh? You don’t want anyone else at your ‘super special cove’?” Dresdin teased, only to find Rose looking off.

“... Yeah …” she admitted.

Dresdin smirked at the honesty of his Lucario and gave her head a loving scratch.

“Fair enough, it can stay our ‘super special cove’, then!... I’ll just think of a different-”

Rose looked back up to give her owner a smile of gratitude, only to see an armed man running up from behind Dresdin. He was dressed in all black and brandished a pocket knife. Rose instinctively shoved her owner behind her and rushed to face the masked assailant. Dresdin stumbled backwards. A meaty arm tightened around his throat and the iron muzzle of a gun jammed into his side. 

“Shhh, do what we say and no one has to die…” the man hissed.

Rose’s ear twitched. She snapped her head back to see that she shoved her partner into the grasp of another attacker. She didn’t even notice the other Pokemon emerging from the bushes around them. All she could look at was him.

That face… Dresdin hated that face. Those beautiful red eyes wide with panic, the tremble of her agape lips, the flattened ears, it was the last expression he’d ever see her make, and it was burned into his memory.

The gun jammed further into his side. Dresdin winced. The gun was slid further up and wedged again into his lower ribs. Then the gun slid higher up his back and was shoved under his shoulder blade.

Dresdin gasped as he awoke to his reality of darkness. The mere existence of his recent visions proved that he was dreaming. The pressure on his back, however, was very real.

“ Finally awake? ” Rose hummed from atop him. She pressed down on his back with both of her paws, massaging his muscles. “ You’ve grown into quite the heavy sleeper, huh? ”

“Mmmm…” Dresdin groaned into the pillow. His partner kneaded his tight trapezius and down his shoulders. He could feel her paws were warm with the glow of aura as they pressed and rubbed their way up and down his back. It felt… nice.

Dresdin pursed his lips as he fully woke up and realized what was happening. He was lying on his stomach, and Rose was straddling his back. He didn’t know how early it was, but knowing her, she probably was massaging him awake at the crack of dawn. Today was ‘day one’ of her aura training, and the massage he was receiving was probably one of her creative exercises.

“What are you doing up there?” 

“ Well, I have a lot planned for you today. It seemed a thorough warm-up would be useful! ”

“Should I be afraid?”

Rose giggled.

“ Exercise never scared you before… so I don’t think so~ ” the Lucario reset her knees further up the human’s back and began warming and rubbing his neck with aura. Dresdin’s damaged left eye rolled back in soothed delight as his Pokemon’s padded fingers worked all the tension out of his neck. “ Your description of aura yesterday was insightful… It’s life energy. Obviously, I can sense and manipulate it in ways you can’t, but it behaves the same in both of our bodies. The ‘conductive’ material for both of us is muscle. When my muscles absorb it, I can redirect and reuse it. When your muscles absorb it, it just gets diffused as heat. That’s how we are going to get you to see again!... er… feel again? ”

“So, building muscle?… We’re lifting weights today?”

“You HAVE gotten awfully skinny~” Rose patted her owner’s back before resuming her massage. “Regaining some muscle is a good start… We’re also going to do a lot of stuff like this. Just… letting your muscles get sensitive to this flavor of heat.”

“Mmm,” Dresdin droned, soothed by the tender strokes of his companion’s heated forepaws. “We also have a follow-up appointment to get my stitches removed this afternoon…”

“ Yeah… like I said: ‘Busy day’. ”

The two had another extended pause. Rose’s paws were soft, but rough. Years of ‘Force Palm’-ing boulders or other Pokemon had left the pink pads hardened and calloused on the surface, but still fleshy and squishy on the inside. An extended massage like this gradually became uncomfortable as Dresdin’s fragile skin grew irritated under the abrasive pads. Dresdin began shrinking away from her paws and wincing in mild pain.

“ Sorry, we should probably buy some massage oil a bit later… ”

“Yeah…” Dresdin mumbled into the pillow.

Rose’s brow furrowed at his tone. It revealed where his thoughts were.

“ You're still having that dream… ” Rose said, more as a statement than a question.

Dresdin didn’t respond, wondering how Rose deduced this.

“Just… put some faith in me, alright? By the time I’m done with you, it’s all just going to be a distant memory!”

“Why are you so certain I can do this?”

Rose resumed massaging her owner’s back as she formulated her words. She needed to be strong, like Leandra. She couldn’t tell him about the guilt that was tearing her apart. She couldn’t tell him how selfish this request really was. She couldn’t tell him how much she hated herself, how she would do anything to fix what happened. Instead, she decided to ask him a question:

“ You remember those old stories about Sir Aaron, right? ”

Dresdin’s laughter was muffled by the pillow.

“Yeah… I was afraid that that was what you were hoping for. Sorry to disappoint you, Rose, but I’m not the legendary hero of Cameran Palace. I’m just-”

“ Sir Aaron was a human, right? ”

Dresdin didn’t respond.

“ Even if his abilities were exaggerated in the stories, and even if you don’t have anywhere near his talent, the fact that a human could sense and use aura is proof that you can too. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the same capacity as Sir Aaron, and it doesn’t matter if it takes twice the training for half of the results… I JUST need you to see again, and that’s the easiest skill to learn! ”

“It doesn’t sound very easy…”

“ Ah right, I forgot you had more important things to do today! My mistake~ ” she giggled.

Rose rubbed Dresdin’s shoulders in silence, a passive smile on her lips. She knew what her owner was trying to do, but she wouldn’t allow it to discourage her. Eventually, Dresdin sighed and admitted to what she suspected:

“I’m sorry, Rose… I just… I’m afraid of disappointing you, and don’t want you to set your expectations too high.”

“ I would only be disappointed if you didn’t try. As long as you do exactly what I say for a couple months, you may quit knowing that we gave it our best shot! ” 

Dresdin frowned at her words. They felt like… lies somehow. Her statements were too cheerful and confident, spoken like she was trying to convince herself.

Lucario shifted her weight and dismounted her prone human. “ Come on, now! We have a lot to do today! ”

Dresdin lifted himself from the bed with a furrowed brow and a hardened resolve. Rose wouldn’t admit it, but she would be disappointed if he failed. He could feel it. He couldn’t lower her expectations, and he couldn’t let her down; all that was left was to push himself to be exactly what she wanted.

“Workout first, then doctor’s appointment?”

“ Mmmm, let’s go shopping, too. Mom didn’t leave us with any meats or protein powder… ”

“Huh, it’s almost as if she wasn’t expecting me to be bodybuilding the moment she left. How strange.”

Rose chuckled nervously as she imagined her blind owner handling and inevitably dropping heavy free weights.

“ Eh… let’s see how many pushups you can still do, first~”

Chapter Text

As spring turned to summer, the duo continued this daily routine. They would walk to the Hearthome Recreation Center together and try to piece together a workout within the constraints of Dresdin’s disability. Dresdin would choke down as much unseasoned meat as he could stomach, prepared by a Pokemon who didn’t know how to cook. Finally, they would allocate two or three sessions of time to ‘aura training’.

Many of these exercises were creative games Rose would come up with to inspire a small level of aura awareness in Dresdin’s immediate surroundings. It was abundantly clear that he wasn’t blessed with any natural ability, which was expected. Even though progress was very slow, the time Dresdin spent with Rose was its own reward.

The July sun beat down on the Sinclair’s back yard. The grass had grown out of control in some areas and completely died in others. Weeds had infested the rock beds and obstructed any decorations set around the fenceline. 

The yard was Rose’s responsibility to tend to. However, after all the time she had spent training Dresdin, non-essential chores had all been ignored. The weeds and the lawn were definitely an eyesore… But she doubted Dresdin was too bothered by it.

Dresdin’s face had healed as much as it could, but his appearance had permanently changed.

The three lacerations across his face had healed into scars, one of which perfectly aligned with the scar through his left eye. His left iris was split and pail, bordering some mild discoloration at the bottom of his eye. It was as though his iris had been cracked open and spilled its color into the whites of his eye. His pupil healed shut, but the deep brown eye he once had was now a lifeless gray. 

The acrylic eye occupying his right socket was manufactured to be a matching shade of gray. It didn’t sport the scars or damage that the left eye did, which made it look a bit off. To have such a deep scar cutting over the perfectly flawless prosthetic eye announced that it was fake to all who saw it.

Despite their dysfunction, Dresdin maintained the habit to direct his eyes at whatever he was focusing on. Whenever Rose spoke to him, he could hear where she was. He would look at her, even if he couldn’t really ‘see’ her. His gaze was inaccurate and unfocused when he did so, but it created an illusion of normalcy to bystanders.

The blind trainer and his Pokemon stood thirty feet away from each other on their back porch. Rose held her forepaws outstretched to the sides. One of her paws glowed softly with her signature aura, almost too dim to notice. She watched her owner’s broken eyes, trying to gauge if he could feel her at this distance.

Finally, Dresdin sighed in defeat.

“You’re going to have to turn it up a bit, darlin’.”

“ Sure thing! ” she chirped. The blue flame in her right forepaw intensified, and Dresdin smirked.

“Ah… There it is…” he bit his lip as he tried to pinpoint the location of the aura. At his distance, the angle between his partner’s outstretched forepaws were only a few degrees. His job today was to discern which paw was glowing.

This was a difficult task. He felt the aura’s heat incident on his muscles in a similar way to how he felt the sunlight incident on his skin. The trouble was Rose’s aura was much dimmer than the sun, and he had to be precise.

“R… right paw.”

“ Good! ” Rose allowed the flickering aura in her right paw to disappear, only to reignite the same side.

Another pause.

“Right paw, again?”

“ Good… ”

“L-eft paw.”

“ Perfect! Let’s turn the intensity back down! ” The aura flame in her left forepaw disappeared and a much smaller one ignited in her other paw.

Dresdin rolled his tongue between his teeth and furrowed his brow. He could still feel this dimer aura, but only barely. 

“Right paw?”

“ There, see? You don’t need that much to feel it~ ” Rose cheered as she switched sides once again.

“Left paw…”

“ Good! ”

There was an especially long pause this time.

“...Neither?” he peeped, unsure if he was just failing to sense anything.

Rose smiled as he saw through her trick. “ Atta boy~ ” The Lucario dropped her arms and walked back to her owner.

“Is that all?”

“ For this lesson. We can do some more after your workout! ” The Lucario set her hand on the human’s back and guided him inside.

“Yes, we could … OR …” Dresdin smirked.

Rose rolled her eyes as she shut the sliding door behind them.

“...We could go to the gym tomorrow and focus on aura today!”

“ You just don’t want to do leg day! ” Rose stuck her tongue out at her owner.

“ Nobody wants to do leg day,” Dresdin groaned.

The Lucario giggled. “ You’re muscles are your new eyes, ‘seeing’ will be easier if they’re nice and strong~ ”

“Yeah, yeah…” Dresdin mumbled. “But I can’t help but feel we should be doing more ‘aura stuff’ rather than just basic exercise.”

“ We definitely need to balance both… ” Rose pursed her lips before perking up at an idea. “ Oh! How about we just practice on the way to the gym? ”

“Oh?”

“ Yeah! The game is: ‘Follow the leader’. We walk to the gym like we usually do… but instead of holding my hand, I’ll walk ahead. You follow behind me by thirty feet or so. Just keep sensing me and try to keep up! ”

Dresdin paused.

“That sounds kinda… hard.”

“ I’m sure you can do it~ ” The fighting-type patted her owner’s back as she led him to the front door. “ And we can always tweak the rules a bit if it’s too much! ” Rose unlocked the door and walked out first. She jogged a short distance up the sidewalk and waited for her owner to follow.

Dresdin hobbled down the steps of their front porch and made it to the edge of their property with some confidence. That confidence was immediately smothered in apprehension.

He paused to feel Rose’s aura a short distance up the sidewalk. His feet grew heavy as he hesitated to place any new steps.  He stood in the middle of a sea of uncertainty with only one point of reference. He could feel Rose… but that was all. Any obstacles or uneven pavement between them were undetectable, but present. 

Until now, if they wanted to get to the Rec Center or the grocery store, Rose would hold his hand and guide him there. They could make good time if they wanted to hustle, but now Dresdin felt like he was holding the whole process up.

“Sorry…” he apologized as he forced himself to take a couple uneasy steps towards his partner. 

“ No! Don’t apologize and don’t rush! ” Rose tried to calm her owner down. “ We aren’t in a hurry! Just… focus… and breathe. ” 

Dresdin steadied himself and obeyed his instructor. He stood in place for a minute, trying to feel anything besides his Pokemon’s radiant aura and the summer sun shining down. He tried to separate the two sensations, focused on how the sun warmed his skin, and the aura warmed his muscles.

Dresdin took another uneasy step forward and pursed his lips. Something changed. He did it again. Something moved in his surroundings once more… Or rather, he was walking past something. 

Rose’s eyes lit up as her owner reached to his right and patted the metal trunk of a light post outside of his path. It didn’t cast a shadow on the human or give any other hints of its presence. He sensed it was there.

“Huh…” Dresdin mused. That was a new sensation for him. He refocused on his elated partner and took a few more steps towards her. Several dim warmths shifted in relation to his new position, all so dull that he could barely notice. 

Another several steps towards Rose, and he felt a dim warmth in front of him grow slightly brighter. Dresdin raised his arms and grabbed the trunk of an Oak sapling in his path. 

Rose could hardly contain herself as she backpedaled away from her partner. Her tail swished around excitedly and her steps became bouncy. He was doing it. She expected him to stumble after her until they made it to the gym, only following her lead, but he was actually catching glimpses of his surroundings. Sure, he could only sense the large objects that were a few feet away, but the progress was encouraging.

Their commute to the Rec Center tripled in duration due to their slow pace. Rose restrained herself from showering him in praise, and allowed her owner to practice in silence. She kept her distance with a proud smile on her face. Optimistic about how far she could push her owner’s newfound skill. 

When they finally arrived at the Hearthome Rec Center, Rose immediately smothered her owner in a giddy hug.

“ That was amazing~ ” she bubbled.

“It’s a start,” Dresdin chuckled as he patted his partner’s back.

The Lucario looped her arm around Dresdin’s. She hugged his hand as she guided him inside.

Dresdin frowned at her touch. Rose had always been an affectionate Pokemon. He was very familiar with the way she would hold him if she was happy, if everything was alright. He didn’t feel that here, and he hadn’t for months. Her grasp on his arm was desperate and apologetic. It felt like she was… afraid of him being disappointed or frustrated at his slow progress. She clung to his arm, praying that he wouldn’t get impatient or mad at her. There was something horrible festering inside Rose’s heart and he could feel it through her grip.

Dresdin scanned his membership card at the front desk and allowed Rose to walk him through the facility to the weight room in the back.

“Is there something wrong, Rose?” he finally asked.

Her grip immediately relaxed as the Pokemon realized what her owner had noticed. She caressed his arm casually, an attempt to pretend that her touch was always tender and happy.

“ Wrong? You just walked here all on your own! Everything’s wonderful! ”

Dresdin opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. There was that hint of dishonesty in her voice that he had grown to despise, a fake facade of cheer and enthusiasm.

Rose guided her owner over to the squat rack, but Dresdin planted his feet before they could reach their destination, halting them both. Rose tugged on her owner’s arm, only for Dresdin to pull in the opposite direction. 

“You know, Rose,” Dresdin started. “I can’t do much anymore, but I can still be here for you if something is bothering you. You know you can talk to me about it, right?”

The Lucario’s brow furrowed at his words.

“ I know! You’re my partner after all~ ” she chirped. Her cheerful act was paper thin. Her words were empty lies. Dresdin frowned.

Rose was hurting inside, and he needed to know why. If they weren’t in public, he would challenge her further, poke at her until she told him the truth. However, this wasn't the time or the place to make a scene. Dresdin sighed and began his workout, hoping Rose would open up to him when they got home.

She never would, not after all she took from him. Dresdin had plenty to worry about and plenty to focus on that didn’t involve how much Rose hated herself. It was her job to look after him, not the other way around.

Chapter Text

A chilly breeze whipped through the streets of Hearthome, sprinkling the brick roads with another wave of autumn leaves. The sky was illuminated with the first gradients of sunrise.

The blanket of brittle leaves crunched under the clunk of Dresdin’s hiking boots as he walked. Rose’s soft paws flattened much fewer leaves with each step, making a gentle crinkle as she followed closely behind her owner.

The two wandered wordlessly outside of the city limits. Dresdin remembered this path well. Even though he hadn’t walked it in a while, old memories of Rose and him traversing this path were too numerous to count. He could feel when his boots landed somewhere off of the sidewalk, and could correct his footing without any thought. His focus remained on the warmth of aura reflecting off of the streetlights as they walked past them. The illumination the posts were designed to offer was completely worthless to both of them, but the poles still served as aura-reflectors for Dresdin to track as they marched further outside of town. 

Dresdin paused as he stopped sensing metal posts, the end of Hearthome City limits. He took a deep breath and tried to deduce where they were.

“Berry Master’s property line?”

“ Yup! ”

Dresdin waited a little longer to try and feel for the large wooden house he knew to be in the distance. He could remember where it was and what it looked like. A cozy structure with a large overhang above its front porch. The lights were probably all dark and the occupants were still asleep. 

Dresdin couldn’t feel anything from the distant structure. This didn’t surprise him. No matter how much Rose taught him about aura, most things would remain far beyond his sensitivity.

The pair resumed walking. The concrete sidewalk transitioned into a dirt path, and gradually that dirt path began to slope up the mountain. This was a well worn hiking path up to the top of Mount Coronet, maintained by the frequent footfalls of mountaineers trampling weeds into dust. Dresdin and Rose never followed it all the way up to the mountain’s peak. It was just a common trail to lead them to their discovered detour.

Their pace slowed considerably as the path grew cluttered with protruding rocks and uneven footing. Dresdin’s lips were permanently curled into a focused frown as he concentrated on what his shins and calves were feeling. The intensity of aura given off by an object was primarily determined by whether it is alive or not. The rocks at Dresdin’s feet were all equally dull in that respect, merely reflecting the aura given off by Rose and his own body. Beyond that, the intensity felt by the human was determined by how close an object was. He could feel the warmth of aura in the shin that was a couple inches from tripping on a rock. If he really focused, he could even feel that same dim warmth in the other leg, offering a strange form of depth perception to detecting obstacles.

Dresdin’s steps were short and cautious, but he managed to traverse the increasingly rocky path without landing on his face. 

Rose was focused on sensing aura as well, though it was for a completely different reason. The four appendages on the back of her head passively floated about as they surveyed a much wider radius than her owner could. Any living thing within a mile of the duo was detected and scrutinized by the tense Lucario. Any wild Pokemon who looked in their direction or got too close was met with a furious scowl and a threatening posture.

She refused to ever get her guard down, no matter how safe their surroundings felt. After all, the last time she ran this path was in the opposite direction, Dresdin’s blood dribbling down her body. 

Today was the last day that they could hike up to their favorite spot this year, the highland cove that they spent dozens of days lounging in as kids. Winter was approaching, and this hiking trail was soon to be coated with a deep layer of snow that wouldn’t melt until spring. Not only that, their mother was coming to visit tomorrow, and she definitely wouldn’t allow her blind son to hike this mountain, with or without his new ability. Dresdin wasn’t confident enough with his aura sensing abilities to be comfortable with a long hike like this, but he didn’t want to wait until next year to try.

Several miles of slow progress passed, and the morning sun rose above their heads. Dresdin directed his broken eyes to the sky and sighed to himself. Even though he couldn't see the sun, the radiance on his face announced it’s location.

“I knew I couldn’t do this in a day…”

“ Yeah, but does it really matter if we get caught out after dark anymore? ” Rose giggled.

“That’s true,” Dresdin smirked as he sensed around his surroundings. 

“This is where we leave the path, right?”

Rose folded her arms, and cast her muzzle away from her owner in playful defiance. “ Hey! I said I wasn’t going to help you! ”

“I just want to point out that: If I steer us in the wrong direction and you don’t say anything, we’re just going to get lost and might not get home at all.”

Rose sighed as she conceded the point. Dresdin was still doing all the traversing. Despite their original agreement, the fighting-type decided to spare a little help with navigation. 

“ That little trench we normally cut through is just ahead .”

Dresdin smirked and nodded to his partner. “Much obliged~”

The blind man tentatively left the trail and stepped down the steep incline beyond, familiar with its size and depth.

This wasn’t the last time Dresdin needed to ask his partner for bearings. After they crawled out of the shallow ravine, the mountainside was a sea of waist-high brush. There was no path or familiar landmarks that Dresdin could sense. The best the human could do at this point was guess the correct direction, and ask his partner to correct him. 

This carried on for a couple more hours until Dresdin’s boot finally landed on a familiar granite crag. The human perked up and refocused his senses. This was a formation he recognized, a giant cradle of brittle igneous rocks walling off the world from their secret cove within.

Eons ago, this place started out as a giant volcanic rock, protruding out of the mountainside. The massive rock formation was slowly forced open by natural phenomenon. As the brittle rock split open, yearly snowfall began to run through the openings, hollowing out the stone inside and replacing it with soft sediment that flowed in from above. After centuries of erosion, all that remained was the husk of the great igneous rock, sheltering a freshwater cove on the inside. 

Water trickled in from a crack in the far corner, pooling into a pond that flooded half of the cove. The pond didn’t have an obvious spot where it drained, leading Rose and Dresdin to believe there was a channel under the sediment that drained the water from below the sandy bottom. 

As Dresdin poked his head into the empty cove, he noticed it was completely silent. Usually, the enclosed area was steeped in the soothing trickle of water flowing into the pond on the far end. Evidently, it was too cold out for that.

The human felt around in the sandy earth for a pebble. He tossed the rock across the cove and heard it smack onto the solid pond and slide across the surface.

“Tch… Frozen…” Dresdin sighed. He wasn’t interested in swimming, but it still would have been fun to wade his toes into the water for a few minutes.

Rose followed her owner into the depressing cove. Without water flooding half of the arena, their favorite spot was reduced to a giant bowl of sand housing a frozen puddle and bordered by jagged rocks.

“ Oh well… the goal was just to get up here. It’s not as though we can stay for long anyways… ”

“Yeah,” Dresdin frowned. It really didn’t matter if the cove was lush and flooded, or cold and barron. His previous visit was the last time the view mattered.

Rose mirrored her owner’s frown.

“ Can you… at least feel anything familiar about this place? ”

Dresdin’s broken eyes scanned the rocky walls as he tried to glean a hint of the cove he would never see again, only to come up empty. All that remained of this place were distant memories. Just like the Berry Master’s house, it was all outside of his range and would be forever.

“No.”

“ Really? Nothing at all? ”

Dresdin sighed.

“I don’t know why you’re surprised.  We both knew from the start that I’d never be able to grasp… This.” Dresdin gestured to the igneous cliffs surrounding them. “I can finally do what you set out to teach me, why do you keep expecting me to-” Dresdin paused as he could no longer feel Rose behind him. Her aura disappeared.

“R-Rose?” Dresdin called out, only to hear his own echo bounce around the cove. He rolled his eyes. Rose wouldn’t just run off for no reason. She was still in the cove, just undetectable. She was playing a game. He wasn’t quite sure what the game was yet, but he didn’t mind playing along. Dresdin removed his backpack and tossed it by the entrance.

“It’s funny… you always made your aura brighter whenever we were training… It never even occurred to me that you could probably hide it, too.” Dresdin mused as he paced further into the sandy arena. “I can see why you never used this trick though… it’s not a very useful skill for any exercises.”

The human stopped to focus on his surroundings.

“Buuuuut, it is perfect for a game of ‘hide and seek’~” Dresdin’s earlier assessment of the cove wasn’t completely true. The rocky walls did give off a very faint glow, far too dull and foggy to be of any value. He couldn’t discern size or shape or distance of the walls, but if he focused, he did get some hint that they were there. From the center of the circular cove, Dresdin could sense each cliff face equally. His best chance of winning this little game was to eliminate variables that messed with the dim glow of the walls, and making them all the same distance away was the first step.

The human stood in the middle of the arena for several deep breaths as he evaluated his surroundings. He focused on any foreign heat that glittered inside of his muscles, feeling for any uneven intensity in the aura around him. The only abnormality he could detect was very small, a distant pocket of air that was even more dull than the walls around it. It wasn’t just that Rose was hiding her aura, her body was drawing in a small amount of aura from her immediate surroundings, creating a slight dead space. 

Dresdin smirked and walked towards the irregularity. 

“Gotcha!” he exclaimed as he reached out to grab Rose. His hand swiped across her fur, but the Lucario twisted and evaded being grabbed. Dresdin straightened up as he heard several soft pats of paws in the sand. She was running away from him?

“You know, in ‘hide and seek’, the game is over after the seeker finds the hider!” Dresdin raised an eyebrow as Rose didn’t respond. “Oh, I see… wrong game.” 

 Dresdin bent down and sifted through the sediment at his feet. He lifted up a jagged rock, slightly smaller than a baseball.

“No… Perhaps the game is: ‘Pin the tail on the Pokemon’~”

Rose smirked from the other side of the arena, eager to see if her owner could peg her. The human brandished the rock to the entirety of the cove, ensuring that Rose could see what he had and warning her that he wasn’t going to underhand it. Rose had no objections. Rock-type Pokemon could never leave a bruise on her, and she didn’t fear her owner would.

Dresdin wandered back to the center of the arena and refocused on his surroundings. He concentrated on locating the negative space Rose was hiding in. However, every time he got a hint of it, it faded. This time, Rose wouldn’t stand still for more than a few seconds. She was actively moving around, changing directions and wandering about the edge of the cove. Her soft paws were cushioned by the loose sand, making her footfalls completely silent.

Dresdin honed his senses to the movements of his elusive target. Rose was still pausing for four or five seconds before moving to a new spot. These small windows of opportunity challenged her owner to detect her and tag her before she moved again.

Dresdin held his breath as the subtle aura pocket faded from his senses. He waited for several heartbeats. The moment the negative area settled and teased his periphery, the human brought his arm back, lunged at his Pokemon and launched the rock as hard as he could at her. 

‘Wap’

Dresdin smiled. The rock didn’t clatter against the rocky wall or splash into the sandy ground. That ‘wap’ was very familiar. It was the sound of a hard object slapping against Rose’s forepaw, like a baseball in a catcher's mitt.

“There, are you happ-?”

The human’s eyes grew wide with terror as he was introduced to a new sensation: a dull aura presence that grew wider and more intense, a rock flying at his face. Dresdin flinched away and threw his hands up. His reaction was far too clumsy to dodge or catch the projectile. The stone bounced off of the palm of his hand and landed in the sand. 

Dresdin stumbled backwards, reeling and frightened. Not once over the summer has Rose tried to throw anything at him, and that rock could have easily knocked a tooth out if he didn’t block it.

“W-what the hell was that for?” he stuttered.

Rose’s signature aura reappeared in front of Dresdin, radiant and warm. Her forepaws wrapped around her owner’s waist. Dresdin initially shied away from the hug, fearful that this was another test or game. Thankfully, it wasn’t. Rose only offered him a tender embrace that expressed how proud she was of him. 

“ You want to know why I keep expecting more from you? ” Rose beamed triumphantly. “ It’s because I know that you can do so much more than you let on, and if I push you, I can make you prove it~ ” Rose’s paws squeezed her owner before she continued. “ I’m so happy that you made it this far. Being able to move around on your own is exactly what I wanted to teach you, but I would be doing you a disservice if I let you stop here. Especially when you have so much more to learn… Like how to catch~ ”

Dresdin began to laugh and hugged his partner back.

“Maybe we should practice with something a little softer first. A tennis ball perhaps!”

Rose giggled and patted Dresdin’s back. 

“ Sounds good~ ” she hummed, bubbling with joy. Teaching and training with Dresdin this summer was the most fun she’d ever had, and she was thrilled to know that he wasn’t ready to give up.

This joy soon faded as she reminded herself of the bigger picture. Dresdin had worked all summer to reclaim a fraction of what he was born with, what she took from him. She didn’t deserve to be happy when the whole reason for this training was her failure to protect her owner in the first place.

Dresdin could feel this shift in her embrace, and he knew what it meant. All of Dresdin’s fears had come true. It didn’t matter how skilled he got with aura, it would never be enough. Rose would never forgive herself, not on her own. She never wanted to talk about it, but he felt obligated to make her.

As her hug grew shallow and apologetic, Dresdin’s hug tightened around her, warm and thankful. The Lucario’s eyes widened as her owner squeezed her hard enough to pick her up.

“Rose…” Dresdin whispered, somber and serious. “I will always try my best at any games or training you want to do… but at some point, I need you to forgive yourself.”

Rose recoiled at his words. 

“ I-I don’t know what you mean!” she stated, releasing her embrace and attempting to back out of the hug. Dresdin held her chest firmly against his, refusing to let her go. 

“I know you’re trying to be strong, Rose, but I can’t let you keep doing this to yourself. I wanted to let you work out your feelings by yourself. I hoped eventually you’d learn to let it go, but you’re still beating yourself up inside and it’s starting to scare me.”

Rose’s brow furrowed in anger. She didn’t want her own forgiveness. It was meaningless to forgive herself. Dresdin was the one who lost everything from her mistakes. She needed his forgiveness.

But she couldn’t tell him that. His heart was too warm and soft. He would shower her with assurances that he held no resentment towards her, how he had no forgiveness to offer. Maybe he would rush to forgive her verbally, but it would be merely to ease her nerves. 

Rose had to earn his forgiveness, and she wouldn’t move on until she did. She was obviously terrible at hiding her guilt. Her facade was thin enough for a blind man to see through, but she couldn’t talk about it without defeating her own goals.

She rested a forepaw on Dresdin’s chest, and smiled at him.

“ Don’t worry, I will forgive myself someday. I’m just not quite ready yet... ”

Dresdin sighed.

“Let me know if I can help somehow. I’m always here if you want to talk about it.”

“ Thank you. I will, ” she assured, but forgiveness was something she had to earn by herself.

Light in the cove shifted in color as the sun began to set. Dresdin didn’t notice the darkness approaching, but Rose pointed this out and helped him locate his backpack. The duo left their cove and started back down the mountain. Rose looped her arm around her owner’s, holding him close as she guided him back to the hiking path they came up on. She could have let him feel his way down the mountain on his own, but the setting sun and the autumn chill spurred the duo to hustle home.

Chapter Text

They got home just before midnight. Dresdin was reasonably exhausted. He just hiked a mountain. His legs were cramping up and his back was sore. No matter how often he exercised and trained his legs, a hike that long would always be a challenge. 

Dresdin unlocked the front door and entered their dark house. He removed his backpack and left it in the entryway, opting to unload its contents tomorrow morning. Rose closed the door behind them and helped her owner upstairs. No lights needed to be flicked on as the duo made their way up to their rooms, wordlessly going straight to bed rather than bothering with dinner. Dresdin didn’t need any help navigating to his room, but he leaned on his Pokemon for support as his tired legs began to stiffen up. 

The two paused in the hallway dividing their bedrooms.

“ Mom will be here at noon tomorrow. What time should I set the alarm for? ”

“Eh… Don’t bother… even if we both oversleep, Mom will just bonk me awake with my white cane.”

Rose giggled. Leandra would definitely do something like that.

“ Fair enough~ Do you need help with anything? ”

“No, thank you, Rose. You’ve helped me plenty today~” Dresdin patted Rose’s forepaw before letting go and hobbling into his bedroom. 

Rose’s brow furrowed as she sensed her partner’s aura moving about in his room. He returned his hiking boots to his closet and pulled off his clothes, sensing every obstacle and target around him with relative ease. 

Rose had spent their descent from the mountain ruminating on Dresdin's words. He wanted her to forgive herself; he wanted to know what that would take, when that would be, and if he could help. Rose herself didn't know.

To an extent, he had his independence back. He could maneuver around the house without assistance and accomplish some simple chores by himself. Maybe with some more practice, he could get a basic part-time job. 

Perhaps THAT was it. Maybe Rose could dispel her guilt if she returned everything she took from Dresdin.

Rose smiled to herself and her posture grew tall. She was going to make sure he got it all back. It didn’t matter how long she had to work at it, but she will earn his forgiveness someday.

That smile faded as she remembered the one thing that would be impossible for her to return. She could coax her owner to get out of the house again, rekindle his social life with his old friends, but the permanent scarring on Dresdin’s face and eyes would make getting a new girlfriend… difficult. 

Rose retreated to her room and flicked on the light. There may be some corrective surgeries available to help smooth out her owner's badly scarred skin, and maybe he could buy some contact lenses that could hide the damage on his left eye… but even then, human females kept high standards for their mates. Most girls would spurn a blind man without a second thought.

Rose’s room had a full length mirror standing in the corner. She slowed down as she walked past it, appraising her body. She compared her size and shape to Samantha, but chuckled to herself as she walked away. She looked nothing like Sam, and the idea that she could fill that role to Dresdin was so stupid it was humorous.

But Rose paused. The Lucario backpedaled until she could see her reflection once more. What she saw in the mirror was not what Dresdin saw. All he could ever ‘see’ of her was her aura. Looks didn’t matter to him anymore. The only sense she really had to satisfy was touch. Did she feel like Samantha?

The Lucario rested her forepaw on her chest and ran her fingers through her fur. Female Lucario technically did have breasts, but they only swelled with milk when they were lactating. Unlike humans, Lucario breasts existed as a thin layer of fat between their fur and pectorals for most of their lives, barely noticeable until they were needed by a newly hatched pup.

Rose slid her forepaw down her belly and along her hips. She supposed she did have roughly the same shape as a human girl… but she wasn’t what Dresdin wanted, not even close. 

She was a steel-type; her muscular body was hard and uninviting. Her forepaws were fat, clumsy, and adorned with metal spikes. Her head was about as ‘inhuman’ as could be, with pointy ears, four aura-sensitive appendages dangling from the back, and a big, dumb muzzle. 

However, maybe if Dresdin was willing to… ‘pretend’, she could be close enough.

Rose pursed her lips as she formulated a plan. She wanted to earn his forgiveness for the life she took from him, but it didn’t matter if she earned it as Rose . If Dresdin was willing to pretend, she would earn his forgiveness as ‘Samantha’ instead!

The fighting-type flicked off her bedroom light and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She tip-toed across the dark hallway and listened for her partner's breathing. She could sense his aura laying across the bed… but he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. Rose was going to give him back everything he lost, even this!

“ Dresdin? ” Rose peeped. She deepened her voice and lilted her words to match someone that he used to know: “ It’s Samantha… ”

Dresdin sat up in his bed with sleepy confusion. “Rose? What are you talking about?” he groaned, rubbing his face. He could feel Rose’s aura in the entryway, an intensity that could only be produced by a Lucario. 

“ No… I think Rose went to bed. I’m Samantha. ” The Lucario’s impression was hilariously bad. Even if she got the pitch and tone of Samantha’s voice right, she was still just repeating her species name over and over. Dresdin still had to interpret her grunted Pokespeak. Despite this, a smirk curled up the human’s face. Rose was playing a game. Even if he wasn’t sure what the game was, he was happy to play along:

“Oh, Sam! I haven’t seen you in forever! It’s a bit late for a visit though… What brings you by?”

“ Hi! Uh… I… just felt really bad for treating you the way I did, and I came by to apologize. It wasn’t right for me to abandon you the moment I heard about what happened. You were having a rough time, and I shouldn’t have lied about ‘calling you back later’. I’m sorry. ”

Dresdin chuckled. “Awe, don’t worry about it, Sam. If anything, you helped me understand something important.”

Rose paused. “ I did? ” 

“You did! I… really liked you, Sam. We had a ton of fun together, and I would have loved to hold onto you as a friend… I realize a disability like mine can be tough to work with, and it would be understandable if you decided after a few weeks that you couldn’t… but you didn’t even care enough to try. My Pokemon was the only one who stood by my side through all of it, and that really shows how much of a mistake you would have been.”

Rose smiled. This wasn’t quite where she imagined this conversation going, but she was happy to be Dresdin’s verbal punching bag if he needed to vent. The Lucario entered the dark room and sat beside her owner on the bed.

“ I’m sorry to hear that. ”

“Oh, please don’t be. Dating is about getting to know people, and you certainly showed me who you are!... Then again, you also didn’t seem like the kind of person to come all this way just to apologize.”

Rose’s ears folded back. “ Well… I know males have needs, and I haven’t been around to satisfy yours. ” The Lucario leaned over and rested her forepaw on Dresdin’s thigh. She squeezed his leg suggestively, but she couldn’t calm the embarrassed tremble in her touch. “ I just wanted to tell you that: If you would like some… ‘attention’ from me, I’m happy to give it to you…”

Dresdin chuckled nervously.

“O-oh! That’s… very nice of you, Sam, but we’ve never… had sex before, so I’m not particularly starved of it!”

Rose’s ears perked up in surprise. Her heart was washed with a strange sense of relief upon hearing this. If Dresdin had no sexual experience with Samantha, then he would have no expectations if he was pretending with her. 

“ O-of course! I knew that! I was just thinking maybe if you ever wanted to, we could try now? It’s the least I could do for behaving like I did! ”

Dresdin smiled and rested his hand atop of hers.

“Maybe at one point, but not anymore… Thank you,” he answered, polite and gentle. He could feel the anxious quiver in Rose’s forepaw, and he rubbed around her metal spike to try and calm her down. The fact that Rose was role-playing as Samantha meant that she was doing this for him, and he wouldn’t disrespect his partner by indulging her game of ‘pretend’... at least, not for sexual purposes.

“Although, I am very happy that you came by, Sam.”

“ You are? ”

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about Rose.”

Rose’s muzzle drooped as Dresdin directed the spotlight on her.

“Lucario are… very stoic Pokemon. They don’t like to share their emotions with others, either because they feel they aren’t worth sharing or they want to be strong for those around them. Rose isn’t… strong like that. I know she blames herself for what happened, but she won't talk to me about it. I think that opening up about it would help her a lot, but I don’t know how to have that conversation with her…”

Rose’s brow furrowed as her heart grew defensive.

“ It doesn’t sound like something you should worry yourself with! ”

“You’re wrong, Sam. Rose is… all I have left, and I want to be there for her, but she won’t let me, and I’m getting scared.”

Rose frowned, but didn’t respond.

“ Please, Sam. I don’t know what to do… ” Dresdin begged.

Rose had been backed into a corner, at least in the context of the game. She never liked Samantha very much. They were complete opposites in temperament. Even though Rose didn’t want to trouble Dresdin with the guilt she felt, Samantha would not hesitate to speak her mind. 

The Lucario’s ears folded down as she straightened her posture. Dresdin wanted her to be like Samantha right now, and that was exactly what he would get:

“ I think… ” Rose looked off before finishing her thought: “ I think maybe Rose knows how much she took from you, and she just doesn’t want you to hate her for it, ” she whispered.

Her words stung Dresdin’s heart, but he fought to keep himself calm. 

“What on earth has she ever taken from me?”

“ ... Everything… ” Rose growled. “ If only she did her fucking job and protected you like any decent Pokemon would, you’d still have all of it. If you never adopted that stupid Pokemon; you’d still have your job, your freedom… your life. Rose took it all away from you. She can handle it if Mom hates her, or if all of the neighbors know how she failed to protect you… But her heart couldn’t bear to think that you hate her. She’s making you bend over backwards to regain a small piece of what you once had. Her hugs might feel a little anxious and apologetic because she knows that your blindness is all her fault, and- ”

“Why isn’t it my fault?” Dresdin interrupted. 

Rose paused as the human’s aura flared with energy. She had spent the last six months worrying if her owner secretly resented her, but this was the first time his aura actually felt upset.

“Well?”

“ I-… She didn’t warn you! She should hav- ”

“I grabbed that man’s gun! Not her! That was my choice. Why isn’t Rose sitting me down and telling me what a worthless person I am? Why isn’t she lecturing me about how I’m too weak to protect the ones I love? How I should be ashamed for even trying?”

Rose didn’t respond for several heartbeats.

“ R-Rose would never do that! ”

“Yeah well…” Dresdin directed his broken eyes towards his Pokemon. “Why does she have to do it to herself?” Dresdin paused to calm himself and refocus his words. “It doesn’t have to be anyone's fault! I did what I had to to protect Rose, and she fought her hardest to keep me alive. It’s a miracle that we’re both here! A MIRACLE ! Rose did protect me; she did do her job, and I would never blame her for what happened!”

Dresdin looked off.

“I didn't lose anything of real value that day. Rose is safe… and I got to keep my life. Everything else is trivial…”

“ You don’t really believe that… ” Rose whispered.

“If Rose doesn’t understand how important she is to me, then I’m the one who has failed her …” Dresdin whispered back.

Rose’s heart stopped beating for several moments. She slowly wrapped her arms around Dresdin’s torso. She pressed her cheek against his chest and wetted his skin with her tears. Dresdin smiled and reciprocated his partner’s tender hug. It was a truly affectionate and warm hug, free of the guilt and shame that burdened Rose all summer. For once, she was just glad to have him, and he was glad to have her.

“I missed hugs like these…” he hummed.

“ Can you forgive me? ” Rose peeped, squeezing her owner harder.

Dresdin sighed. “Rose… You never needed forgiveness from me.”

“ Could you… say it anyways? ”

Dresdin paused as he understood what she was really after. She believed hearing him forgive her would help her forgive herself. Dresdin leaned next to his Pokemon’s sensitive ear.

“I forgive you,” he whispered, soft and sweet. His honeyed words tickled her ears, but they didn’t release the tension in her heart. The Lucario frowned. It seemed she needed to learn how to alleviate the guilt of her failures on her own.

Dresdin pursed his lips as he sensed the inefficacy of that exercise.

“Would you say something for me, too?”

Rose released her hug and lifted her eyes to meet Dresdin’s. Her vision had slowly adjusted to the darkness of the room, and she could barely make out her owner’s damaged eyes and genuine smile.

“ Eh… Sure? ”

Dresdin’s fingers slid down Rose’s cheek and caressed under her chin, ensuring that she was looking at him.

“I want you to say: ‘Dresdin did this to himself’.”

Rose tried to look off. “ Master, I don’t think- ”

“Rose...” Dresdin redirected her eyes back to meet his, making a point for Rose to look at his scarred face and broken eyes as she said it.

“ Dresdin did this to himself… ” Rose whispered, obediently holding their one-sided eye contact.

“Good!... Now say: ‘He did it because he loves me, and he would never let anything bad happen to me’,” Dresdin instructed.

“ He did it because he loves me, and he would never let anything bad happen to me. ” Rose repeated his words, slowly and carefully. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Her breath trembled as she spoke. 

Dresdin smiled. “Thank you! Finally, I want you to say: ‘I’m all Dresdin has, and if he had to do it all again, there is nothing he wouldn’t give up to protect me’.”

Rose didn’t even try to repeat Dresdin this time. The Lucario grabbed his shoulders and shoved her muzzle past his hold on her cheeks.

She squished her lips against his. Her kiss was forceful but timid, earnest in its delivery but terrified of being rejected. It lingered for several heartbeats until Rose realized herself. This kiss was one-sided. Her ears folded down and she pulled herself off of her owner’s stunned lips. Her muzzle drooped and she looked off.

“ S-sorry. I… know that wasn’t the kind of ‘love’ you meant… I just- ”

She shuddered as her heart twisted in shame.

“ T-this was a mistake! I’m sorry! ” The Lucario tried to stand up and leave, but she froze. A human hand curled around her arm.

Dresdin slowly pulled on her forepaw, begging her to stay. Rose eyed her owner as she tentatively sat back down beside him. Dresdin clasped Rose’s forepaw against his chest as he gathered his resolve. After another pause, he pulled her into a gentle and controlled kiss of his own.

Rose’s giddy tail slapped at the bed behind her. Unlike hers, Dresdin’s lips were supple and pillowy. Rose delighted in squishing and playing with them. The force of their lips grew as they wordlessly expressed to the other how they felt, and how long they had felt this way. 

When they finally broke. The duo panted softly into eachothers agape mouths as they waited for the other to speak, to object, anything. They had dropped the ‘Samantha role-play’ a while back, but Dresdin still felt the need to clarify:

“I’m just gonna pretend you’re Rose…”

“ O-ok! ” Rose peeped.

“So, uh… Rose , would it be weird if I asked to… touch you?”

“ N-no! Not at all! ” Rose chirped, grabbing her partner by the wrist. “ That’s… what I came in here for! ” The fighting-type pulled his hand between her legs. She was getting warm and wet around her womanhood, and she was happy to show her owner. Dresdin’s fingers grazed his Pokemon’s canine vagina. A jolt of terror rolled up the human’s back and he slid his hand further down Rose’s thigh. 

He heaved a nervous chuckle.

“Eh… That wasn’t quite what I meant…” His hand tugged on Rose’s knee. The Lucario raised an eyebrow, but obeyed her partner’s suggestion. She shifted her weight back and allowed the human to lift her leg onto his lap. Dresdin wrapped his dexterous digits around her captive appendage. He slid his hands slowly up the length of her shin, his fingers spreading out to feel around every contour of her leg until his delicate hands curled around her paw. 

Rose waited in confusion as Dresdin caressed her lower paw with one hand and slid the other back up to her knee, sifting his fingers through the short black fur covering her shin.

“Yes, I know… a very weird request. I’m just… My memory of you is getting blurry and I’m starting to forget what your lower half is like.” Dresdin explained as he gripped her toes and rolled them in his curious fingers.

Rose’s ears flicked up as she understood what he was trying to say. She had been very touchy these last six months, but only with her upper half. Whenever Rose touched Dresdin, it was always in the form of a hug, or a grip, or a nuzzle. These things only reminded him of what her chest, forepaws, and face were like. He hadn’t seen the rest of her body in a long time. He was starting to forget how wide and soft her lower paws were, how rigid and sturdy her shins were, the range of motion of her ankle and knee, and normally it would be weird to ask for a reminder. 

Rose smiled as her owner explored her body. She wiggled her toes playfully in his grip, allowing him to feel in between them and squish her pink pads. She flexed any muscle his other hand squeezed and massaged at around her thigh and knee, showing him how each one connected and controlled her joints. 

When Dresdin initially opted to touch her legs and paws over her lady bits, Rose was concerned that he was disinterested in… ‘the rest of her’. However, she could sense an ulterior motive behind this paw-play. Dresdin did want to be intimate, but he was a bit… nervous, and reasonably so. He needed to warm up with something a little less direct, and his blindness was a good excuse to start out slow and platonic.

 Rose had to restrain herself. The human’s tender treatment of her feet was oddly flattering, but it only further built her anticipation. Her lady bits burned from neglect. Her delicate opening swelled with blood, and her natural lubricant stung when it met the chilly air. The fighting-type grew impatient, and pulled herself out of Dresdin's grip.

She crawled up and sat on Dresdin’s lap, straddling his hips and pressing her belly against his. Rose’s forepaws slid down her owner’s arms and guided his hands around her back and onto her supple butt, one hand on each side.

“ Do you remember what that feels like?” Rose smirked.

“I… eh, never knew what that felt like…” Dresdin stammered. His grip on her ass was loose and hesitant.

“ It’s a good time to find out, then~ ” Rose whispered in Dresdin’s ear. The Pokemon set her forepaws on Dresdin’s shoulders and pulled him into a soft kiss, then another. 

Dresdin’s curiosity eventually overpowered his unease. As Rose continued to kiss him, his hands began to wander and squeeze at her backside. 

Lucario have very odd hips and thighs. At a glance, many humans wonder if Lucario are wearing blue pants, but Dresdin knew better. His previous research on the subject revealed that Lucario have very powerful, but fragile, muscles. A blunt strike against one of these muscles while they are flexing can easily cause it to tear and bruise. The ‘pants’ are a small adaptation to help alleviate this. Lucario only accumulate fat around their hips and thighs in a tight cellular structure. This not only pads and protects their strong leg muscles from blunt damage, but it also keeps their center of gravity lower to the ground. Dresdin learned this years ago, but this was his first opportunity to feel this dense fat and the fur that covered it, to find out how tightly it gripped Rose’s muscular butt.

Rose giggled into Dresdin’s mouth as his exploration grew more rough and passionate. He massaged her glutes, and inched his hands under and along her sweltering legs. He gripped the base of her tail and slid his hand along its length. The fluffy appendage wiggled playfully in his loose grasp, but made no real attempt to free itself.

The Lucario set both of her forepaws on her owner’s neck, breaking one long kiss for many smaller ones up the human’s face. The fighting-type held her owner’s head still as made her way up his cheek, and ran her rough tongue along the scar across his right eye. 

Dresdin chuckled nervously as his partner laid gentle licks and kisses on his closed eyelid, worshiping the prosthetic eye underneath. 

“Rose…”

“ You gave these up to protect me… ” she whispered, before repeating the affectionate treatment to his badly scarred left eye. She wet his prominent scarring with her rough tongue and spread her saliva around with a series of soft smooches.

Dresdin sighed and dropped the subject. This wasn’t an act of atonement for the guilt she felt, it was gratitude for his sacrifice. He was somewhat ok with the latter, as it implied she was learning to share the blame for what happened, starting to forgive herself. Rose’s admiration ritual was harmless, so Dresdin allowed her to continue.

The blind man slid his hands up Rose’s hips. He sifted his fingers through her cream-colored fur and rubbed her back. Her muscles were far more dense than his. Beneath the soft fur, her back felt chiseled and powerful. It didn’t matter how much time Dresdin spent in the gym, Rose would always be way stronger than him by her natural anatomy alone. 

Her body was as sturdy as it always had been. Her aura, however, felt… off. It didn’t flicker and ebb like it normally did. It seemed to simmer inside her. The frequency of her shifting aura was much higher and it bubbled with an energy he had never sensed before. The seething aura twitched and seized up at random intervals, almost like it was restless or anxious.

“Are you ok?” Dresdin asked.

Rose planted one last kiss on his closed eyelid before responding.

“ Of course~! Why do you ask? ”

“Your aura just… feels weird. I don’t know if I should be concerned.”

Rose’s heart gulped in her chest and her cheeks flushed with blood.

“A-again… It just did it again…” Dresdin stammered with unease. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

The two stared at each other for several moments. Rose slowly leaned forward and pushed Dresdin back onto his bed. The two flopped down on the comforter, but didn’t break their eye contact.

“R-Rose?” Dresdin peeped.

“ What else do you feel? ” Rose asked, her tail swishing happily behind her.

Dresdin perked up at the wonder and excitement in Rose's voice, and he moved to find an answer to her question. His hands hovered a few inches away from his partner as he traced the outline of her body. They slowly moved along her sides as he felt her aura without touching her.

The Lucario’s ribs and obliques tingled in anticipation. Rose’s skin felt strangely ticklish under Dresdin’s hovering hands. He wasn’t touching her, but her body reacted like he was.

“Well… uh, your aura is just kinda ‘glittering’ or… ‘sparkling’?” Dresdin smirked as he sensed a more familiar pulse within her ethereal flame. “... and your heart must be beating pretty fast!”

Rose smiled back. “ Your’s is too~ ” she whispered, breathless.

Dresdin’s words struck a strange cord inside Rose. Lucario prefer mating with other Lucario, and for good reason. Most don’t like to show or talk about their emotions, and they never had to with their own kind. Lucario needed only to feel their partner’s aura to learn exactly how their mate was feeling. It was a level of intimacy that just wasn’t possible with most other Pokemon.

Dresdin wasn’t like most other Pokemon, and he wasn’t like any other humans either. Rose had spent all summer teaching him how to feel aura. That ‘sparkle’ he felt within her was a glimpse of her emotions, a reminder that he sensed her the same way she sensed him. Rose’s heart raced and her instincts whispered in her ear. They told her she was straddling a strong male Lucario, and that she needed to grab onto him and never let go.

Rose leaned down and mashed their lips together with a fervor unmatched by any previous kisses. 

Dresdin couldn’t keep up with his partner’s newfound vigor. The Lucario seemed to have lost all control of herself as she squeezed his shoulders and licked at his lips and inside his mouth. Rose’s breathing devolved into a trembling pant, anxious and eager.

A drop of her feminine juices fell from her puffy canine vagina. The hot syrup landed on Dresdin’s stomach, rolling between his abdominals and into his belly button. The human chuckled.

“Let me help you with that~” The human slid his hand down his partner’s fluffy tummy, only to have his wrist grabbed just short of her leaking womanhood.

“ N-no… Not with that… ” Rose whispered, her voice shaky and desperate.

Dresdin hesitated, but he couldn’t argue with Rose’s request. She wanted to… and deep down, he wanted to. He didn’t know if this was love, but that was something they had to sort out afterwards. 

The human lifted his hips and reached around his Pokemon. He slowly pulled his sweatpants down, and kicked them off of his legs. His hands returned to Rose’s hips as he laid back down, leaving his eager erection to beg for attention between his partner’s legs.

The curious Lucario reached down and wrapped her stubby fingers around the base of Dresdin’s hungry manhood. She could sense her owner’s heartbeat in his aura, and she felt his penis throb to the same pulse. Rose tugged at his dick with intrigue. She had always imagined it to be like most other Pokemon’s, tight and fleshy… maybe it even had a knot at the base. She was surprised to find the Dresdin’s dick to be unlike anything she could expect. Unlike Pokemon, it didn’t hide inside him when it wasn’t erect. It was encased in delicate skin that matched the rest of his body. The skin around it was loose and followed her paw as she gave him a few shallow strokes. 

Her ears folded back as she tried stroking the full length of her mate’s erection.

To Dresdin, the hesitation revealed Rose’s concern. He rubbed at her sides, wordlessly assuring her that she didn’t have to try if she didn’t think they were… compatible. Humans are much bigger than Lucario in stature, and it would stand to reason that they were much bigger ‘down there’ too. 

Rose refused to heed this warning. 

After a deep breath, Rose lifted her hips and directed Dresdin against her opening. The puffy lips of her canine womanhood kissed at the head of his penis, mixing his precum with her vaginal drool. She squished her opening against him several times before finally lowering her hips. Dresdin’s glans parted her pigmented lips and slid into the syrupy embrace of Rose’s womanhood. 

Rose panted and gasped as she lowered herself onto her mate. Her first penetration was smooth and slow, saturated with natural lubrication to be as painless as possible. She felt Dresdin’s dick squish against her cervix. However, with only half an inch to go, Rose straightened her posture and sat fully on her owner’s lap, stretching her vaginal lining the last little bit she needed for her lips to reach Dresdin’s hilt.

“ T-there! ” Rose declared, uncomfortable but triumphant. They were an unreasonably good fit, all things considered. Dresdin’s full length was a bit much for the Lucario to handle right now, but she was confident that her body would make the necessary adjustment the more they made love.

Dresdin’s brow furrowed in concern. 

“Careful. Don’t push yourself…”

Rose set her forepaws on Dresdin’s chest, and lifted her hips.

“ Y-you can be as g-gentle as you want when it’s y-your turn! ” she stuttered, her voice rattled by the sensation of Dresdin’s manhood sliding back out of her. “ I-I’m going to show you how I feel! ”

She pressed her hips back down. Her drooling womanhood swallowed up Dresdin’s member once more. 

The human squirmed slightly under his Pokemon’s movements. His grip tightened on her hips, but allowed her to continue at her pace. The Lucario leaned over her partner, and began to rock herself back and forth, forcing his member in and out of her sweltering folds with increasing speed.

Rose let out a feminine squeak as tingles of pleasure twisted up her body and welled in her chest. All the foreplay she endured had left her body sensitive and needy. It only took a few strokes of her partner’s member to melt her into a trembling mess.

“ Mmmm! ” she moaned, keeping her mouth shut. The Lucario halted her movements as she tried to regain her composure, but this didn’t do much. Even when she wasn’t moving, her vaginal lining instinctively convulsed and squeezed at Dresdin’s dick, causing him to flex and twitch inside her. She couldn’t stop the little pings of pleasure from warming her belly and bringing her close to her limit. Rose expected sex to last much longer than this. She hoped to please her mate for hours if she could… but she didn’t know how to prolong it.

The Lucario pinched her eyes shut and started moving her hips again, faster and more frenetic. She bounced back and forth on Dresdin’s lap, sliding him in and out with full strokes. The head of his dick cycled between shoving her cervix further into her belly, and threatening to fall out of her pigmented lips when she brought her body forward. 

“ AHH!~ ” Rose winced, the end of her moan squeaked almost like the whine of a dog. The building pressure in her belly gathered around her womanhood, almost like she needed to urinate. The muscles lining her insides twitched and convulsed against her owner’s cock. The Lucario slammed her hips down against his. Her forepaws grasped at Dresdin’s chest, shoving him further into his bed as her body seized up.

“AHNNnnn…” Rose cried out as her first orgasm washed over her, helpless to stop it. Her pussy squeezed Dresdin’s erection, drenching it in a fresh coat of her hot excretions. The Pokemon trembled as her juices dribbled down Dresdin’s scrotum and soaked the sheets below.

Dresdin’s hands slid up her thighs and hips as Rose calmed down, slowly curling around her back and inviting her to lay down. The exhausted Pokemon lowered herself onto his chest, and into his loving embrace. 

“ Ugh… ” she groaned, exhausted.

Dresdin snickered

“Ugh?” he repeated his partner with a questioning tone.

“ That was pathetic… ” Rose mumbled against Dresdin’s shoulder.

“It was wonderful~” Dresdin assured. He ran his fingers through her cream-colored fur and rubbed her back. The human’s erection remained inside her womanhood, twitching impatiently. 

“ You aren’t done yet… ” Rose grumbled, disappointed in herself.

“Yes, I am~” he hummed, perfectly content with falling asleep with his partner. It was getting very late, and they just finished hiking a mountain. A loving companion to snuggle up with was far more valuable to him than any three-second orgasm.

The Lucario reset her forepaws on either side of her partner, threatening to get up. Dresdin tightened his embrace around her back, holding their bodies together and encouraging her to stay.

“ I’m going to please you… ” Rose growled. 

“Geez… Will you relax if I do it?” 

Rose pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. There wasn't much Dresdin could do from underneath her, and his invitation for her to ‘relax’ implied no intention to change position… but she did say he would get a turn… After a dubious pause, the Lucario laid back down on the human’s chest. 

Dresdin’s hands slid down her back and onto Rose’s butt, holding her in place as he started to move. He rolled his hips up, pressing his manhood back into his Pokemon. His strokes remained short and sensual, never pushing far enough in to reach her cervix, nor far enough back to near falling out. Dresdin had a limited range of motion under his Pokemon, but he made the most of it.

Rose’s panting soon resumed under this new treatment. She learned why Dresdin wanted control this time. Unlike her, he wanted to be slow and soft. He wanted to savor this… to savor her. Rose buried her muzzle against her owner’s shoulder as his gentle movement’s warmed her womanhood. Rose’s full strokes rushed her to her first orgasm, but this gradual build was just as enticing.

Dresdin turned and kissed her temple. The Lucario’s ears flicked up, realizing another merit of this more intimate position. Rose lifted her head and offered her eager lips for her owner to kiss instead. Even the kisses he offered were slow and restrained. He didn’t mash his lips passionately against hers. Their mouths barely touched with each smooch, and broke apart often for them to pant and gasp from their gentle love-making.

Dresdin’s grip tightened around Rose, and he made his first noise of the night: a quick stuttering breath. 

Rose’s eyes shot open as she realized what was happening. She had learned exactly what her mate wanted from her, and rushed to give it all to him. She pressed her lips against his, soft and careful. She caressed his chest with her forepaws, tender and thankful. Finally, she tilted her hips down, sliding his dick only an inch further into the hot embrace of her womanhood. She wasn’t forceful with any of these things. Even though it was thrilling to be rough, being gentle had its own captivating appeal.

Dresdin’s hands trembled as his senses were drowned in the euphoric tingles of Rose’s attention. His penis throbbed, spilling wave after wave of his love into his partner.  His hips shifted, squirming under the sensation as his fluids filled the space between his dick and Rose’s womb. 

Rose’s mouth curled into a thankful smirk as she felt the faint but distinct pressure of semen against her cervix. Her kiss lingered for several moments after the slight sensation faded and her partner relaxed into the bed. Their lips finally broke with a soft click. 

The Lucario nuzzled her owner’s cheek as she made herself comfortable atop her new mate. She slid her knees further down the bed and laid fully atop her human. Their movement allowed Dresdin’s half-erect member to fall out of her satisfied womanhood. A mixture of semen and feminine excretions dribbled out of Rose’s pigmented opening. It dripped on Dredin’s genitals and slithered between his legs, staining the sheets below.

Dresdin stroked and rubbed Rose’s back and shoulders as the exhaustion of their day settled in. His petting grew slower and lazier as his eyelids grew heavy. Rose’s breathing began to catch in her slackened throat as she fell asleep, creating a soft snore. Dresdin dozed off shortly after. Thankful for everything Rose had given him throughout his life.

Chapter Text

The exhausted duo shifted in their sleep. Rose turned and rolled off of Dresdin’s chest, but they never left each other's embrace. Even if their tossing and turning separated them, one would always seek out the other in a sleepy haze, and they only fell back asleep if they had an arm or a leg curled around their new mate.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds of the bedroom window. The glow intensified as the morning progressed, and only managed to awaken the light-sensitive Lucario as the day approached noon. 

Her eyes fluttered open, revealing the walls of a room that wasn’t hers. There were a pair of strong human hands wrapped around her belly and her ears twitched at the sound of Dresdin’s soft breathing behind her. Rose smiled to herself, thankful that last night was not just a dream. Her tail attempted to wiggle, but was pinned between Dresdin’s naked thighs.

The air in Dresdin’s room was thick with a myriad of delightful smells. Each breath filled Rose’s sensitive nose with scents of evaporated semen, oily skin, and human sweat.

His aroma wasn’t just in the air; it was in the sheets, and after last night, it was in her fur. The oily musk held her and comforted her like a sweet incense. It soothed her whole body and invited her back to sleep.

The Lucario peeled one of Dresdin’s forearms from her stomach and hugged it against her chest. She tilted her head down and took a long whiff of the back of his limp hand. Her nose lit up with a more potent dose of his signature smell. 

Lucario could not sweat. In fact, most furred Pokemon couldn’t sweat either. Rose’s nose was not conditioned to be allured by the smell of a human male’s salty excretions, but it didn’t make much difference to her. Her sensitive nose still recognized the pheromones suspended in Dresdin’s soothing aroma, unmistakably masculine.

Rose continued to lazily sniff at Dresdin’s hand. The activity should have served to wake her up, but his delicate scent seemed to lul her back to sleep. She poked her nose through his fingers and smelled his palm, picking apart the subtle difference in fragrance from different parts of his skin.

Dresdin’s fingers curled around Rose’s muzzle and waggled her nose around, slow and playful.

“Good morning…” he mumbled.

“ Good morning~ ”

Dresdin released his partner’s snout and set his upturned hand an inch away from her nose. It was a sleepy invitation to continue sniffing if she wasn’t satisfied.

Rose’s brow furrowed at the gesture. Dresdin would never have to make such a weird offer to a human girl. The Lucario grew self-conscious the more she thought about what she was and what they did together. Her ears folded back, brushing across Dresdin’s cheek in the process.

Dresdin smirked as he interpreted the body language.

“Speak your mind, my love~” he encouraged. “I’m always here to listen~”

Rose paused. She really was terrible at keeping things to herself, but thankfully she never had to again.

“ Ok… uh… Be honest: Did last night feel a bit… weird for you?”

Dresdin smiled.

“I’m sure everyone’s first ‘experience’ is a little weird~”

“ You know what I mean…”

Dresdin paused.

“If that’s what you’re hung up about, then no, not really. I made love with the girl who will always be there for me. It felt like a dream come true… did it feel weird for you?”

“ No. If anything, it was concerning how natural it all felt… ” Rose squeezed Dresdin’s forearm against her chest. “ We were always partners… but last night, when you sensed what I was feeling through my aura, you weren’t just my partner anymore. You saw me the same way I see you. You looked at me like a Lucario would. It didn’t matter what shape you were or what you smelled like; you were my strong Lucario that would protect me from anything. I couldn’t ask for anything more… ”

Dresdin chuckled as he remembered Rose’s uncharacteristic vigor from last night.

“A Lucario, huh?” Dresdin hummed as he rubbed Rose’s fluffy belly. “Is there anything I can do differently to be more like a male Lucario~?”

Rose’s ears flicked up at the implication, but quickly flattened as she considered the offer.

“ O-of course not! I want you as a mate, no one else! ”

“Lucario~ [ I can be both~ ]” Dresdin whispered pokespeak in her ear. Rose trembled as his words seemed to tickle her whole body. The human’s pokespeak was a cheap imitation of the language he heard Rose talk in every day. His lilt was a bit off, but what he said in her tongue was unmistakable. “Lucario? [ Are you sure? ]”

“ T-that’s not fair! ” Rose scolded, her voice shook as she struggled to hide her instinctual excitement.

“Oh! So you get to role-play as Samantha, and that’s fine . I try to play as someone you want, and suddenly I’m the bad guy!” Dresdin jested.

Rose wiggled out of his grasp and twisted around, laying on her other shoulder to face Dresdin.

“ If you didn’t want to pretend I’m her, what makes you think I would want to pretend you’re someone else? ”

Dresdin smirked. He gave the tip of Rose’s nose a quick smooch before answering.

“True…” he conceded. “But if you’d find it more… thrilling, I wouldn’t mind~”

The Lucario rubbed her human’s muscular chest. “ You can show me how you feel as you . I wouldn’t want anyone else! ”

Dresdin lifted himself from the bed and gave Rose another eager kiss, then another. He crawled on top of her, placing a hand on either side of her shoulders for support.

“Have it your way~” he sang, sweet and coquettish. The naked human leaned back in to kiss and nibble at Rose’s sensitive neck. The Lucario tensed up as a wave of tingles rushed up her back, thrilled by the new sensation. Her forepaws caressed and squeezed her owner’s torso, a chiseled body that they had built together.

Dresdin shifted his weight onto one arm and slid his free hand around Rose’s fluffy chest. His fingertips rubbed at her tiny breasts, sifting through her fur to find and play with the small nipples hidden underneath. Dresdin’s nibbles and kisses at her neck slowly brought him to her collar and down her pectorals.

The Pokemon’s brow furrowed, and she looked off. She knew what Dresdin was after.

“ Sorry… ” she mumbled as her owner kissed her flat mammaries. “ They aren’t much… ”

Dresdin giggled. “They’re perfect~” he soothed before digging his tongue under her fur to lick at her black nipple. Her chest was flatter than his, but he loved it regardless. 

Rose arched her back as her whole body was washed with a thrill of tingles. The Lucario squirmed and trembled against her owner as he kissed and nibbled on her pigmented areola, finally leaning in to suckle on her. Her small nipple grew hard in his mouth. The sensation left Rose panting and warm around her womanhood. Dresdin pinched her pigmented nub lightly between his teeth and tugged his head back.

“ Ah!~ ” Rose cried. Her forepaws squeezed at Dresdin’s shoulders. Her tail writhed in delight and her toes curled up.

Dresdin giggled, happy to discover that Rose’s tiny breasts were adorably sensitive. He gave her delicate nipple one last lick, soaking both the pigmented nub and the fur that normally covered it with his saliva. 

The human slowly crawled down Rose’s body, peppering her belly with feverish kisses. Rose laid back as she enjoyed her new mate’s treatment of her ticklish tummy. His lips wandered around each of Rose’s abdominals, before finally sinking between her legs.

The Lucario’s eyes shot open as she realized what Dresdin was doing. Her legs snapped closed, pinning her owner between her thighs and halting his advance.

“ N-No! You don’t have to do that! ” she stammered. “ I’m… not clean down there… ”

Dresdin only smiled at her protest. His hands rubbed tenderly at her dense thighs and he kissed at the knee pinning his head. His gentle affection coaxed her legs to relax and release him. He kissed the side of her knee again and smooched down the inside of her thigh, making his way back to his original destination. Rose grabbed his head with her forepaws.

“ Master, I’m serious! I don’t need that from you! ” Rose insisted, but Dresdin was skilled at sensing when Rose was hiding her true feelings.

Dresdin smiled once more and kissed Rose’s forepaws, pecking them away with his lips. Rose recoiled from the feverish smooches on her palms and hesitantly retracted them. Just like her legs, his affectionate treatment eased Rose into letting him go. Dresdin smiled at her predictable reaction.

“You’re a strong girl~” he sang. This wasn’t just a reminder, it was a challenge. If she really wanted him to stop, she could easily make him stop at any time. All of her attempts were far too halfhearted for Dresdin to accept at face-value. The human’s mouth planted an extended and deliberate kiss right next to Rose’s puffy canine opening, his lips beside hers. 

His broken eyes stared up at her, waiting for her to stop him. Rose’s timid eyes stared back, her cheeks flushed a deep red. The Lucario’s forepaws squished over her face. She was too embarrassed to meet Dresdin’s gaze any longer, and couldn’t watch what he was about to do to her.

“ You don’t have to… ” she peeped, barely a whisper.

Dresdin tilted his head and licked Rose’s pigmented womanhood. She was right to protest about the cleanliness of her privates. His cum from the night before had either dried around her vaginal lips or still festered inside. In a perfect world, he too would have preferred that Rose be washed up down here, but he wanted to show her how he felt, and this was a good demonstration.

His tongue wetted the thin crust of dry semen around her womanhood, lapping up any traces from the night before. The flavor around her pigmented lips was bitter, but mild, a warm-up for what he could smell awaited him inside his partner. Dresdin gathered his nerve and shoved his tongue into Rose’s quivering opening.

“ Ah! ” Rose’s whole body seized up as her human’s tongue licked at her from within. She squirmed with pleasure under his loving treatment. Her forepaws grabbed Dresdin’s head, but only to rub and sift her fingers through his soft hair. Her legs convulsed and trembled. Rose fought the urge to squeeze them shut around him as a thrill of tingles washed around her body.

She tasted… awful. Ladies in general don’t taste very good. Natural vaginal excretions are bacteria saturated mucuses that work to ward off infection, and have a poor flavor to match. Rose would normally have an advantage over human girls in this department, as the Lucario’s opening was exposed to fresh air and even got some sunlight, both of which would help prevent the festering of bacteria. However, Dresdin was the one who made her taste so bad. His semen was decomposing inside her, kept wet and warm by Rose’s insides. It had long since coagulated and stuck to her vaginal lining, and it couldn’t be easily removed by his tongue. He just had to get used to the… ‘refined’ flavor of it.

Dresdin wrapped his lips around Rose’s puffy opening, sucking her pigmented womanhood fully inside his mouth and shoving his tongue as far in as it could reach.

“MMMmh,” Rose moaned. All of the noises she made were quiet and restrained. She wasn’t particularly loud when making love, but her embarrassed enjoyment of her owner’s attention hushed all of her cries of ecstasy to sheepish squeaks and soft bleating. Her eyes remained pinched shut, as she focused on the sensation of Dresdin’s tongue massaging her folds and lapping up the juices like a thirsty dog. The world seemed to fade away as all Rose could feel, see, or sense was her mate’s treatment. 

Her ears naturally flicked towards the distant sound of a door closing, but Rose didn’t pay any attention to this. Her belly stirred with the burning pressure she was now addicted to, the sensation of an orgasm building around her privates. Her thighs slowly squeezed around Dresdin’s ears as the delicious movements of his tongue brought Rose to the peak of pleasure. Her senses were so dull to her surroundings that Rose barely heard Leandra’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

“I hope you two aren’t in the habit of sleeping this late-”

The middle-aged woman froze in shock when she made it to the doorway, just in time to see Rose cum in her son’s mouth.

Every muscle in Rose’s body seized up as every emotion in the world inundated her mind. The orgasm that had been building in her belly seemed to misfire under Leandra’s horrified gaze. The tingles that should have rolled up the Lucario’s spine turned to pins and needles that stabbed her body in a thousand places. Rose’s head spun with nausea and humiliation. Her chest heaved like she was going to vomit her own heart out.

The Lucario was powerless to stop her orgasm or her partner. Tears of shame slid down Rose’s cheeks as she clasped Dresdin against her convulsing body. All she could do was wait for the whirlwind of disgusting sensations to pass, and beg for Leandra’s forgiveness afterwards.

Rose came down from her orgasm trembling in terror, locked in sickening eye contact with their stunned mother. 

Dresdin chuckled when he was finally freed from between Rose’s legs.

“My goodness~” he cooed. He crawled up her body and planted several loving kisses up Rose’s belly. “That was a strong one~”

The ladies stared at each other in mutual confusion. After a moment, they both realized that Dresdin had his ears covered by Rose’s muscular thighs. He didn’t hear his mother call out to them and he couldn’t see her standing in the doorway. 

Rose opened her mouth to drown Leandra in apologies, but struggled to find her voice.

Thankfully, Leandra was quicker to regain her composure. The middle-aged woman raised an index finger to her puckered lips and patted frantically at the air in front of her, a gesture that instructed Rose to calm down and not speak.

The Lucario’s face twisted in bewilderment at their mother, but obeyed her request.

Dresdin had noticed a rigidity in Rose’s body as he kissed around her modest breasts. She was tense, even for a steel-type.

“Is something wrong, Rose?”

Leandra shook her head. Rose obeyed their mother’s silent suggestion, and relayed the response to her blind partner:

“ N-no? ”

Dresdin sighed as he halted his treatment, unconvinced.

“Rose, I thought we were done hiding stuff from each other. Did that feel too weird? I won’t do it anymore if you genuinely don’t like it…”

“ N-no! It’s just… ” Rose looked back at their mother.

Leandra tapped the back of her wrist, where a watch would be worn.

“ It’s getting late, and Mom will be here soon! ”

“Oh! Shoot… What time is it?!”

Leandra held up both index fingers next to each other, an attempt to signal a number to Rose.

“ About eleven o’clock, ” Rose lied. The clock actually read 12:07 pm. Leandra had arrived on time.

Dresdin heaved a sigh of relief. 

“Oh, that’s a relief… We don’t need a full hour to get ready~” The naked human crawled up and gave Rose a kiss on the lips. Rose’s brow furrowed, and she gathered the nerve to kiss Dresdin as eagerly and passionately as she could. The Lucario wrapped one of her forepaws around her mate’s back and mashed her lips against his. Rose’s other forepaw caressed down Dresdin’s abdominals and gripped his hardened penis, tender and confident. She gave his erection a couple shallow strokes for their mother to see.

If Rose couldn’t explain herself to Leandra, the Lucario at least needed to show her what was happening. Dresdin was not a pokephile that was abusing his Pokemon. He would never force himself on her. They were making love together , and Rose had to make that clear. Dresdin was her mate now, and it would take more than Leandra’s judgment to change that. Rose flicked Leandra a timid sidelong glance as she kissed her son, still terrified of her reaction.

Leandra smiled with sympathy as she interpreted Rose’s display. She didn’t suspect any coercion from either of her kids, but understood why Rose felt the need to disprove it. The mother patted at the air in front of her and pointed down the stairs, a silent gesture that said: ‘Take your time. I will be downstairs.’

Rose watched in bewilderment as Leandra tip-toed away from the doorway. ‘Was that… permission?’ she wondered.

Dresdin finally ended their extended kiss with a puzzled look on his face.

“Mmmm… Surely, the time wasn’t what was bothering you,” he mused as he reconsidered the sudden tension he felt in his partner.

Leandra’s implicit approval of their sexual entanglement gave Rose pause as she considered telling her owner the truth. She rubbed and played with his erection for a few moments until finally speaking:

“ I will tell you… but I don’t want to get into it right now. We’re in the middle of something~ ”

“But you will tell me afterwards, right? You know I don’t like you keeping your worries bottled up like that.”

“ I promise! ” Rose tilted her hips upwards and tugged on his cock, pulling him towards her. “ This just… comes first… ”

Dresdin chuckled at Rose’s assurance. He lowered himself and allowed Rose’s forepaw to guide his manhood inside her freshly cleaned opening. His dick slid inside with slightly more ease than last night, but the tightness of her vaginal lining warned Dresdin to keep his movements slow and careful.

He rocked his hips back and forth gently, reacquainting himself with how deep Rose’s cervix was. The head of his dick squished against her womb, but never pushed very hard against it. Rose’s hungry pussy swallowed up his controlled, deep strokes. The duo panted softly, a pace and intensity to match Dresdin’s restrained movements.

An instinctual urge welled in Rose’s chest. Unlike when her owner was licking her womanhood, she didn’t try to suppress it. After all, she had an audience to impress.

“AHhh~ AH! Hhnn!” Rose’s soft moans and gasps grew louder and more passionate as Dresdin’s movements became complete and forceful. Not only did her mate’s passionate fucking bring more out of her, but she knew Leandra could hear them. Rose showed her what this was in their last silent interaction, but Leandra needed to hear how she felt about her son. Moaning and crying out in ecstasy from his loving thrusts was the most honest and natural way to tell her.

Dresdin pounded Rose’s soft, canine opening with a feverish hunger. His movements became uncoordinated and sporadic as he could feel his loins preparing to dump his love into her once more.

Rose could feel it, too. Her mate’s aura flicked and sputtered with even more energy than hers. Her agape mouth still managed to curl into an eager smile as she anticipated Dresdin’s seed.

Dresdin brought his clumsy hips slightly too far back. When he forced them forward again, his dick slipped out of Rose’s syrupy folds and slid forward. The hot lips of her pussy wiped the underside of his penis. His wet cock hung over Rose’s belly, twitching impatiently. Dresdin winced in frustration as he halted his thrusts and balked at the need to reset himself.

Rose could sense how close her owner was, and didn’t allow him to recover from his misstep. She locked her legs around his back and tilted her hips up. She wrapped her stubby fingers around his wet erection and stroked him. Her drooling vaginal lips kissed the base of his shaft as her paw rubbed the tip of his dick.

Dresdin opened his mouth to protest, but the only thing that escaped his lips was a stuttered breath and a grunt of pleasure.

Rose slowed her strokes as intrigue set in. She had vaguely felt ‘it’ come out inside her belly last night, but she hadn’t seen it happen. Part of her wanted to watch. She stopped stroking him and squeezed his shaft, holding him still. Her red eyes were locked on his manhood with wonder, curiosity and anticipation.

Dresdin instinctively bucked his hips in his partner’s grasp. A glob of his hot semen spilled onto Rose’s fluffy belly. The Lucario’s ears flicked up as the first wave of white syrup set a false expectation of volume and force. She couldn’t help but flinch in surprise as the second wave of cum gushed out and spattered across her chest. Rose tilted Dresdin slightly away from her face as another rope of his thick semen covered her breast and soaked her pigmented nipple. Rose giggled at the thrill of the unexpected pressure release.

The remaining bursts of his ejaculation petered out in size, coating Rose’s stomach with several more splashes of his sticky love. Rose couldn’t help but flex her abdominals at the ticklish sensation of her male’s fluids falling on and soaking into her fur. 

Dresdin bowed his head over Rose as he caught his breath, drained of everything he had. Rose rubbed his erection a couple last times. She watched his slightly parted urethra for any last drops that might dribble out. The thick coat of semen began to evaporate and fill the space between their bodies with its humid musk. Rose’s sensitive nose was inundated with the scent of his love. It smelled salty and bitter, and burned in the back of her snout like a weak vinegar. 

As Rose released Dresdin’s manhood, she slid one of her fingers along the underside of his shaft and up the tip, wiping off the last drop of cum from his urethra. She lifted her forepaw to her mouth, only for Dresdin to grab her wrist.

“Don’t be gross…” he slurred through a hazy afterglow, his mind too addled by dopamine for clear speech.

“ So you gave me all of this, but I can’t have any of it? That’s not fair at all! ” Rose tittered with a cheeky grin. She overpowered her owner’s grip and licked the thick goo from her forepaw. His semen smelled a lot stronger than it tasted. Neither were particularly pleasant, but still, the mild metallic flavor of Dresdin’s essence was… anticlimactic.

Dresdin chuckled at the implication in her response.

“I hope I didn’t make too big of a mess…” 

Dresdin couldn’t see the mark he made on his partner, but she was happy to show him. With a mischievous grin on her face, Rose pulled her blind owner down on top of her, pressing their bellies together. A revolted shudder rushed up Dresdin’s back as his skin fell into the thick puddle of his own jizz. Rose hugged their bodies together, the thick coat of semen was squished and forced out of the way. It rolled down Rose’s sides and onto the bed like a peanut butter sandwich with WAY too much jelly.

“O-oh… my…” Dresdin was at a loss for words, wondering why his prostate seemed to have the same capacity as his bladder.

Rose giggled at his reaction.

“What?”

Rose leaned up and kissed his forehead.

“ You’re making a cute face, that's all~ ”

Dresdin searched Rose’s hidden visgage with his broken eyes. His smirk was wistful and disappointed.

“I wish I could see what kind of a face you’re making…”

“ You can~ ” Rose cooed. “ All you have to do is focus~ ” She rubbed his back, encouraging him to try.

It didn’t take any skill to know Rose was smiling, he could hear it in her voice. However, when Dresdin concentrated on the bubbling warmth of her aura, he could sense how deep that smile ran. Rose glowed with a contentment that rumbled from her very soul. Her aura danced and announced how much she loved him, how happy she was to hold him. He couldn’t see her smile, but her aura painted such a vivid picture inside Dresdin’s imagination that… it didn’t matter.

He leaned up and pecked her nose. Rose tilted her muzzle away so her mate could get at her lips, and they shared a lingering kiss. Dresdin slowly rested atop Rose, growing comfortable with lying in his own semen. Rose didn’t have any of these reservations to begin with. She was thrilled to be soaked in Dresdin’s essence and snuggled with him like it wasn’t even there. Her relaxed body was a stark contrast to the odd tension Dresdin noticed earlier, and this prompted him to remind her of her promise after the kiss ended:

“You still owe me an explanation~” Dresdin sang in a low voice.

Another long smooch.

“ I did promise…but you don’t have to hear it if you don’t want to. ”

Several ravenous pecks at each other's mouths.

“If something’s bothering my mate… I need to know about it!”

Rose gave Dresdin one last kiss to gather her resolve. She took a long breath through her nose while their lips were locked, ready to blurt out the truth when they finally parted:

“ Mom saw us. ”

There were no kisses between their words this time. Dresdin lifted his head and stared at Rose.

“W-what?” he peeped, dumbfounded.

“ It’s past noon right now. Mom let herself in. She saw you… pleasuring me… She’s waiting downstairs. ” 

Dresdin’s heart slowly slid into his stomach as retroactive embarrassment crept in.

“O-...O-oh…” 

Rose could sense the terror creep into her mate as he imagined what his mother saw, what she thought of him… of them. He didn’t see his mom’s face, but he immediately assumed the worst. 

“ Shhh, it’s ok, ” Rose soothed, rubbing Dresdin’s shoulders to calm him down.

“w-Hy d-DIdn’t you s-SAy somethi-ng?” Dresdin pleaded. His voice crackled and broke at several places. His chest was too constricted by stress and rattled by his panic to allow smooth speech.

“ She didn’t want to bother us, and… ” Rose’s ears folded back as she looked off. “ ...and I didn’t want you to stop either, ” Rose admitted. “ She didn’t look mad or disappointed… just surprised. ”

“W-we should still hurry and talk to her!” Dresdin tried to lift himself from his cum-soaked Pokemon only for her to frantically hug him back down. 

“ No, no, no! Wait! I need to talk to her first. I walked in here last night, and I coaxed you into this. I should take the heat for it. ”

Dresdin paused to process Rose’s request. Her attempts to ease his nerves kept him from panicking, but that didn’t mean her head was in a more rational state than his. Dresdin took a deep breath to center his mind on the problem. They were both looking at this the wrong way.

Dresdin smiled, and soon, he started to laugh at the absurdity of their situation. Rose’s ears folded back in concern and confusion at her mate’s sudden shift in demeanor.

“No,” he finally stated.

“ N-no? ” Rose peeped

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Rose.” Dresdin stated calmly. “You’ve spent all summer stacking undeserved blame on yourself, and I won't let you do it anymore.”

Rose couldn’t find any words to respond with. After a pause, Dresdin continued:

“A relationship like this can work, but we have to treat it like a relationship, not a mistake to apologize for. This means we have to handle this as a team. We are going to wash up together; we are going to walk downstairs together, and we are going to explain to Mom what happened-”

“ Together~ ” Rose finished.

“Right!”

The Lucario admired her new mate with a glowing smile. She would never dare state such a thing out loud, but part of her was thankful for what they had gone through, all of it. It brought them together, so close that they’d never leave each other's side again.

Rose kissed her partner’s damaged eyes one last time as he wrapped his arms around her back. She clung to him as he lifted both of their bodies from the bed. They kept their bellies pressed together as Dresdin carried his partner to the shower, careful not to get any of his sticky love on the carpet on the way there.

Rose giggled as she held on tight.

Yesterday, she worried if Dresdin hated her for what happened. She wondered if she would ever make it up to him. She stewed and ruminated and agonized over it for months.

But now, as her mate carried her into the shower, as he resolved to stand by her side, as he navigated their house with the skill she taught him, yesterday’s worries all felt so… silly.