A/N: I already have this entire thing written out, so no need to worry about it getting ditched mid story. It's gonna be three chapters of this same length, and as for when I'll post the second one, I guess that depends on the response I get.

It was the summer of my sixteenth year, and I was on a business trip with my father.

I'm not trying to make this sound more poetic than it was, but to me, it was a pretty important moment, so I'm allowed to make it a bit poetic in my head.

It had been my first time to Sootopolis City when I met Wallace. My dad and I were talking to the gym leader; or at least, my dad was. I was trying to act interested, but it had been a lot of business talk for much too long, because I was starting to drift off and want to go train my pokemon or look at the rocks in the city or really anything but stand there and listen to two men talk about things that I, even knowing then that one day I should care, really did not care about at all.

"Juan, what's going on here?" I heard, the new voice bringing me back to reality. I looked up, not remembering when I had even looked down. A blue haired man was approaching, or really a boy. Not much older than me, by any account. A Luvdisc floated behind him, and as they approached it floated nearer to me.

"This is Mr. Stone and his son Steven. Mr. Stone is the president of Devon Corporation," Juan told the man, then turned to my father and gestured to the other man, "and this, Mr. Stone, is Wallace. I've been training him ever since I noticed his talent with pokemon. He could very well take my place one day, if he had the mind to."

"You overestimate my ability, surely," Wallace answered modestly with a smile. He turned and looked at me, and I had to look up to meet him in the eyes. I was interested in talking to him, but that might have simply been because of my general boredom. I wouldn't have asked, though, as I knew that I wasn't of an age to be allowed to just run off when the business talk started.

Wallace looked at me, and I tried vaguely not to look too bored, but I don't think that I fooled him, even then. He probably wouldn't have attempted a conversation if he'd thought I was interested in what my father and Juan were talking about.

"Do you have pokemon too?" Wallace asked, noticing how the Luvdisc had floated over to me and seemed to be looking me over. I held my hand up to the odd pokemon, one that I hadn't seen before in person but knew by name from books. It inspected my hand when I held it up.

"Yes, I do," I answered when the pokemon seemed reassured that my hand was indeed a hand and went to rest itself on my shoulder. I smiled at it. He stood there for a moment, before looking over at my father and Juan, who were back to talking.

"I hope you don't mind if I borrow your son, Mr. Stone," Wallace said, then tugged at my arm once in some direction. My father nodded at me before saying that he'd come get me before we went to where we were staying the night. I followed Wallace off to another part of the gym.

"What kind of pokemon do you have?" Wallace asked after we'd gotten to where we couldn't hear their conversation. I pulled out one of my pokeballs. I tossed it into the air a bit, and a gray figure materialized in front of me.

"This is Metang, he's been with me since I can remember," I said, and Wallace looked intrigued.

"I've never seen this kind of pokemon, what type is it?" Wallace asked, his Luvdisc trailing behind him as he looked at Metang.

"Dual steel/psychic type," I responded, putting my hands in my pockets as he walked up to Metang. The pokemon, in turn, also showed interest in Wallace. Much like Luvdisc had with me, Metang was soon convinced that Wallace was okay and stopped inspecting him.

"So do you specialize in a certain type...?" Wallace asked.

"Usually steel, yes," I responded, "I suppose you specialize with water type pokemon?"

"How'd you know?" Wallace asked jokingly with a kind smile. He pulled out a pokeball and tossed it into the air. A slender snake-like form materialized in front of me, and I started to reach out but then stopped. I didn't recognize the pokemon or know much about it at all, and I didn't know what this pokemon would think about a stranger petting it. It was beautiful, and while it looked very feminine, the fact that Wallace had it just seemed to fit. They both appeared to have a sense of grace, even though Wallace couldn't have been outside of his teenage years.

"This is Milotic, she's been with me for a while," Wallace said, putting a hand near her head, "I don't know what I would do without her. Not to forget about anyone else," Wallace said, looking back at the Luvdisc when he finished his sentence.

"I-" I started to say something, but I was cut off when I heard my father call out to me.

"Steven, we're leaving, let's go!" he called out to me. Not much time had passed, it seemed like, but it figures that I actually got interested in sticking around right before we had to leave. I called back Metang and tucked the pokeball back with the others.

"It was nice to meet you, Wallace," I told him.

"Same to you," he responded, looking almost puzzled.

I would have imagined that would be the end of the conversation, and I wouldn't see Wallace again. And really, if Wallace was anyone else, I probably wouldn't have. But he wasn't, isn't, and for that I am glad.

Because later the night, when the moon was up and it was dark, there was a tap on the door of where my father and I were staying for the night. My father answered the door, since he'd already been up, and as a self-centered teenager I was wont to move away from the book I was reading.

"Steven?" I heard my father say, and I looked up from where I was perched with my book on the couch. Next to my father stood Wallace, alone, arms tucked behind his back. I lifted an eyebrow at him. He smiled knowingly at me.

"I thought that you'd want to see Sootopolis, since you were a bit tied up most of the day with other stuff," Wallace said, by way of explanation.

"I didn't say I had been," I said, a bit confused, though not necessarily hostile to the idea.

"Juan told me that you had suffered through the entire meeting, so I thought I'd make up for it. Nothing like seeing the city with a local, right?" Wallace said, making a sweeping hand motion that I would soon come to associate with his theatrics. I looked down at my book before marking it and grabbing my bag.

"Sounds like fun," I said with a grin, then looked over at my father, "I'll be back later, I suppose."

"Not too late," he said, then looked at the clock and amended what he said with, "or not too much later."

"Yes, dad," I said, walking out the door with Wallace. When the door had closed, he looked over at me and smiled wide.

"You looked so unbelievably bored earlier that I couldn't help taking pity on you," Wallace told me, and pointed off in a direction, "let's go this way, I want to show you something. You're not adverse to walking, are you?"

"I spend much of my free time mucking about in caves for rocks, I think I'll be fine," I responded and we started to walk.

"Rocks?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm a bit of a collector. I love going into caves and looking for precious stones. See, here are a few of the more common ones that I have molded into rings," I held up my hand where he could see it in the moonlight. He took my hand and looked over the rings.

"That's quite impressive. I've never met someone who was interested in collecting something like that, and I take it you must be very into it if you've got enough that you can actually make into rings," Wallace said, sounding genuinely impressed. I was in turn impressed that he thought it was interesting, because I had partially expected him to dismiss it as boring or stupid.

We continued to walk and talk as we got farther and farther up the crater. I can't remember everything we talked about then, but I do remember the impression he gave me from what we did talk about. He was obviously an impressive battler, from the very fact that he was apprenticed to a gym leader currently, but he also seemed intelligent and his interest in pokemon contests showed a versatility that not many people could claim. Likewise, the respect with which he held all pokemon (though especially his own) told much of his kindness.

Not everything that I gathered about him was wonderful; he seemed a bit vain to me, for one. But mostly I was just impressed with him and wanted to keep talking to him for as long as I could.

So when he held out a hand for us to stop walking, I was a bit unhappy to have gotten to the end already. (I obviously was too caught up in the moment to remember that we would have to walk back). Then he pointed out, and I noticed that we had a view of the entire city from this height, and that the moon lit up the entire city with a gentle white light. Wallace sat down and patted the space next to him. I plopped down next to him and looked out at the city.

"It's a quite impressive city," I said, quietly.

Wallace hummed in agreement. Then he looked over at me.

"It's your first time here, right?" Wallace asked me. I nodded.

"I've been to many of the cities on our side of Hoenn, but Sootopolis and the other cities on this side are a bit outside of my range. That's mostly the reason why I came in the first place," I answered.

"What, you mean to tell me that talking about the set up of pokenavs and other equipment isn't fascinating to you?" Wallace asked me, and I laughed.

"Horribly so," I answered again, "so much so, I imagine I'll spend my life dealing with it."

Wallace was silent for a moment.

"Are you not going to try to do anything else?" he asked. I didn't respond for a moment.

"I don't know. I'm expected to continue the family business," I told him.

"But you don't want to?"

"Well, not particularly."

"What do you want to do?"

"I'd be content to spend all day with my pokemon, digging in caves. But I can't do that."

"Are you going to try challenging any gym leaders or the league?"

"Well..."

"You should," Wallace said, "I plan to."

"You haven't already?" I asked, surprised.

Wallace laughed at my surprise. "No, I haven't. I haven't really seen much outside of Sootopolis and the surrounding waters, much less challenged the other leaders. I plan on starting soon though."

"Oh, well I had just imagined that you'd have challenged a few by now," I said.

"You haven't even seen me battling yet. How would you know whether I could face leaders yet?" Wallace asked, seeming genuinely curious. Much about him struck me as genuine, though.

"I can infer," I said, leaning back on the palms of my hands, "you're apprenticed to Juan, and you don't even seem to be out of your teenage years."

"Eighteen," he supplied. Then he seemed to recognize what I'd said, and continued, "and that's hardly that impressive, there are other people who have done much more than me by now."

"Don't even try to use that excuse," I said, bumping him with my shoulder, "I know you're impressive without you having to try to prove to me how much you aren't." He smiled and didn't respond, and we sat in silence for a bit as I suddenly realized how easily I'd slipped into acting friendly with Wallace. He just seemed to welcome it, somehow.

"I should probably get you back to your dad around now, before he thinks that I've abducted you," he interrupted the silence, and I almost groaned. I had to agree with him though, and so we both began to make our way back to our house.

I spent the way back trying to figure out how to ask him if we could keep in touch without being weird. He answered my problem when we were standing outside the house though.

"Not to seem weird, but do you think we could keep in touch?" Wallace asked me.

"Oh, not at all!" I said, maybe a touch too enthusiastically. Luckily he didn't seem bothered by my eagerness, and we exchanged contact information.

Afterward Wallace smiled, the one that probably would knock out millions of girls' hearts one day. Right then, though, it merely made me feel happy, because I'd made a friend. And it wasn't every day that you can say that.

...

We kept in touch. That is to say, sometimes we'd talk once a week, sometimes once a day, and a couple of times we wouldn't talk for a whole month. I got to hear about his first attempts at taking on gym leaders, all of which he beat, of course. He got to hear about the rocks that I found, and about the time I decided to take on Roxanne. We traded stories plenty; I felt like I knew him really well. That didn't mean that I didn't wish that we could see each other in person. I paid attention to see if my father would be taking any more business trips to the area, but he never had any reason to after the first time.

My problem was once again fixed by Wallace himself.

"Steven?"

"Hey there, how's it going in your part of the world?" I responded, then did a double take when I noticed that his background was different than usual. Usually I saw his room, or a part of the gym.

"I wouldn't know. I'm in Verdanturf right now," Wallace responded, then charged on forward, "I was going to compete in a contest here, and I thought that you could maybe come and watch?"

I couldn't answer quick enough. "Of course I can come, Verdanturf is just a stone's throw away. Why didn't you mention it before?"

"It was a bit of a quick decision. Anyway, how soon can you be here?"

"How soon do you need me?" I said, then flinched at the awkward wording.

"Uh, within today?" Wallace said, for once seeming a bit nervous.

"On my way," I answered, grabbing my bag and yelled at my dad where I was going. By this point, he was used to me leaving at a moment's notice; it wouldn't have mattered anyway, since I was eighteen now and could come and go as I pleased (even though I really didn't).

I tried to make my way through the tunnel to Verdanturf quickly. The trip passed uneventfully, and I ended up outside the entrance a short while later. I started to phone Wallace when I heard his voice.

"You made it," he said, walking up to me.

"I told you I would," I answered.

"I was worried I hadn't given you enough time to make it," Wallace said, picking at his clothes a bit. I realized suddenly that what I was seeing was actually a nervous Wallace, and that was not something I was used to seeing.

"Wallace, are you nervous about the contest?" I asked, tactless. I was just so confused by this new Wallace. His eyes widened a bit.

"Of course not!" he started to insist, but then stopped, "no, I won't lie. I'm a bit nervous. I don't know what's come over me, but..."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," I said, clapping my hand on his shoulder, "When is it starting?"

"Um, soon?" Wallace said, then looked at his watch. He got a panicked look on his face. "Really soon. Come on."

He led me to the contest hall, where he had already signed up and made his way to his spot. I paid for a ticket, which was not nearly as expensive as the upper levels of contests, and also not nearly as crowded. I had a spot close to the front, and I was close enough that if I really wanted to, I could easily talk to Wallace. The contestants ranged all ages, and Wallace didn't seem to be out of place. I remember hoping that he was feeling better, because I knew that he could do well if only he could get over his nervousness.

Wallace was amazing. And that's not my biased opinion at all. He truly was. He won by a long shot. I could tell he was still nervous through most of it, but I also realized that he probably seemed fine to everyone else. He and I had confided a lot in each other; I could tell his moods pretty well by now. When everything was over and he'd been declared the winner, I could tell he was ecstatic.

He was still ecstatic when I met up with him after the contest. I congratulated him enthusiastically.

"I knew you had nothing to worry about," I told him, putting a hand on his arm, "you were amazing."

"You're just saying that," Wallace said, "I was jittery the entire time, it was embarrassing."

"I know that, and you know that, but you managed to pull it off anyway. I'm glad I came to watch," I told him.

He looked about ready to say something else. But then we heard them.

"Oh sweety, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter if you got beaten, it was just a stupid homo. See, look at that. There he is talking to his boyfriend."

I turned to look at the person talking, only to find one of the female contestants, with a bigger guy standing next to her, his arm wrapped around her. She looked sad, but also vindictive, and I could tell even then that this wasn't going to go anywhere good. I started to turn away, thinking that was all he would do.

"It doesn't count if he beat you. He was probably screwing the judges. Every single one. Well, all of the guys, anyway," the guy said harshly, "can't you tell? I mean, what kind of self respecting man enters a contest anyway? And with a sissy pokemon like a Milotic. God."

I started to turn around, but I felt a firm grip on my arm. I turned to Wallace.

"Don't," he pleaded, "it doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does! They're insulting you, taunting you!" I responded.

"Yes, trying to get a rise out of me. And it's not worth it," Wallace told me. I looked back at the other guy, who smirked at me. Wallace was right; he most certainly was trying to get a rise out of one of us, at the very least. He wasn't even attempting subtlety at all.

"Dumb homo," he said, "What a wuss." His friend started snickering. It was pathetic in every way, yet it still made my blood boil that these two could be so rude to Wallace for such a stupid reason.

"Wallace."

"Steven, don't. It's...well, I..." he looked between the two of us.

"What? Why wouldn't you go over there and challenge them to battle?" I asked him, "You and I both know you could take them both easily."

"Because...they're right..." Wallace told me, looking away, "not about all of the stuff about the judges, but...well, I am gay."

I was dumbfounded. I didn't say anything for a moment, and he tightened his grip on my arm quickly before taking a step back. "I shouldn't have said that."

I tightened my fist. Wallace hadn't said anything about this, and I should have felt betrayed that he hadn't told me before, but all I could feel was anger at the idiots who had made Wallace look like that. The fact that he felt like it was okay for them to act like that just because he actually was gay was such a stupid thing and I just couldn't fathom why Wallace would think like that. I realize now that most of the way that Wallace looked in that moment stemmed more from the fact that had just come out to me than out of shame from the insults, but that meant nothing to me then.

However, I think that my next action might have made him feel a bit better. Or at least, I hope it did. It's really the only thing that I can use to justify my actions. I turned away from him and walked over to the two guys. I could almost feel Wallace's confusion and sadness behind me; surely he assumed that I was disgusted with him and didn't want anything to do with him.

He was wrong.

"Hey, douche bags," I said, walking determinedly towards the perpetrators of the entire conversation, "Maybe instead of trying to cheer your girlfriend up by putting someone else down, you could try to be a decent human being and help her train or something? You know, help her get better rather than being complete and utter asshats and trying to make someone else feel bad about it."

They both appeared surprised that I'd said anything at first, then they smirked. "Taking up for your boyfriend, now? Why can't he do it himself?"

"Maybe because he didn't think it was worth it to deal with people as ignorant as you," I continued, starting to realize how stupid this entire thing was, but refusing to give up, "He could beat both of you in a pokemon match, easily, if that was the problem here. If somehow you feel like your manliness has been threatened by him."

"Bring five more men and then it'll be an even match,"one of them said, and they both took that to be very clever.

"How about one? A double battle, you and your friend, me and Wallace?" I continued.

"Whatever, gayboy," he responded. I simply raised my eyebrow at him and I went to inform Wallace of our upcoming match.

He looked, to put it simply, amazed and bewildered.

"Looks like we've got a double battle on our hands, do you think you can handle that?" I asked him, launching straight into the question.

"I- yes, I can," Wallace said, obviously leaving out what else he wanted to say.

"So we gonna go? Let's do it right outside, gotta get this over quickly. Better things to do than this," one of the guys said, standing behind me. His girlfriend looked ready to leave but he and his friend looked stupidly enthusiastic, obviously thinking they were in for an easy battle. Wallace and I nodded, moving to the new battle venue.

"Three pokemon each, then?" I asked, and the two of them just grunted. I assumed it was all that they could manage, with their brain capacity.

I decided not to waste Metagross if I didn't have to, so I sent out Aggron first. Wallace followed suit and sent out Walrein. They sent out a Dodrio and a Torkoal. We were never in trouble of defeat. Wallace and I, we didn't even have to switch out pokemon as we managed to beat each of their pokemon handily.

I remember watching the two of them grow increasingly belligerent as the battle went on, as they realized how hopeless the battle was. They threw insults, but they were weaker than they could have been, now that they knew they were fighting a losing battle, quite literally.

When we'd beaten them, they attempted to run off quickly. I made no move to get them to stop; personally, I wanted them out of my hair. Wallace seemed to have other ideas. Empowered by something, whether the win or my acceptance or what, I couldn't figure then. But he said one thing before they left.

"I can hardly see how my choice in pokemon or the fact that I compete in contests makes me gay. I do, however, see how my attraction to men could possibly make me gay. Don't worry though, I would never stoop so low as to be attracted to you," he said flippantly as they left. There was a silence between the two of us for a moment.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"I don't know what you're thanking me for. You could have beaten them yourself," I answered, brushing it off. Wallace started to respond, but when he saw the smile on my face, he stopped.

He smiled at me in turn.

"How'd you like to come back to Rustboro with me? Unless you have somewhere else pressing to get to really quickly?" I asked him.

"No, that sounds great. I've never been to Rustboro," he said.

"Well don't worry, you'll have a native to give you the tour. Now, we could take one of two routes: the cave or Skarmory could fly us back," I told him.

"Skarmory sounds better, as long as there's enough room for the two of us," Wallace said, questioningly.

I released Skarmory from his pokeball as an answer. "We'll fit, but you might have to sit tight and hold on," I responded. Wallace looked at me questioningly.

"And...you're okay with that?" he asked me.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I asked with a laugh, "I'm not afraid of catching 'the gay' from you, Wallace." The look on Wallace's face when I said that made everything better. He trusted me now, and I trusted him. We were friends.

I couldn't have been happier with anything else, at the time.