Part III: Consequence

May remembered her first contest well. She remembered standing off stage, terrified to go before the audience, terrified she would throw up or pass out or embarrass herself the moment she stepped into the spotlight. Her anxiety was worsened by the fact that she knew Drew, that arrogant boy she had met on the beach only days before, was watching her.

This was just like that, but worse.

May's breath was labored. She was on the edge of panic. She had always felt a little nervous before any battle—and especially in battles versus Drew—but now, she felt lightheaded and like her knees would give way any moment. How could she face him now of all times? How could she share the same stage with him in front of thousands of audience members? How could she preserve her own dignity?

May's name was called. She sucked in her breath and closed her eyes. Focus, focus, focus. She had to be strong, if not for her, then at least for Blaziken. Yet, when she shut her eyes, all she could see was the keen emerald gaze of her rival locked onto her as he held her against the wall of her dressing stall, slowly moving in and out of her.

Focus, focus, focus. For Blaziken, for the ribbon, for her win streak. Trembling, May moved onto the stage and came face to face with Drew across the field to the cheers of an enormous crowd. Though he was far, she tried to get a read on his expression—but nothing. She could discern no emotion there.

May inhaled deeply through her nose and let out a shaky breath on the exhale. She would win this. She had to win this. Her grip on Blaziken's Poké Ball tightened.

"Blaziken, take the stage!"

Her companion emerged in a field of… bubbles? May looked on with confusion, then felt a rock drop into the pit of her stomach. She put the wrong seal on. She had another Flame Seal, and she had put on one of the Foamy Seals she used for Wartortle instead. The battle hadn't even started yet, and she had already messed up.

"Roserade, let's go!"

In the midst of May's own panic, she mentally stumbled. Roserade had no seal. Drew hadn't applied one. She looked at him again and, this time, she could see a genuine expression of bewilderment on his face. She had put the wrong seal on, but he had evidently forgot to put one on at all.

Miriam was making some type of commentary that May couldn't quite hear, but she imagined it had with the the odd seal choices—or lack thereof—of both competitors. May re-centered herself. This was still salvageable. She just had to come out strong.

"Blaziken, use Sky Uppercut!" she ordered. Blaziken's claws glowed a hot white as he charged across the field and struck Roserade—but it was glancing blow.

May inwardly withered. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Roserade was a Grass-type. A Fighting-type attack like Sky Uppercut wasn't going to do much of anything. What a dumb decision. If she wanted to start out with a show of power, she should have gone with a Fire-type move of course.

"Solar Beam!" May was so stuck in her own thoughts that she barely missed calling for Blaziken to dodge. May ground her teeth. She could still save this, she told herself, repeating the same sentiment from earlier.

"Overheat!" May cried. The attack was devastating: Roserade took a direct hit, and at a type disadvantage, she had suffered a lot of damage. Still, even when the smoke cleared, Roserade was still standing. May gritted her teeth again, though she expected this. Drew had trained his Roserade well, even to withstand Fire-type attacks.

"Bounce back, Roserade! Use Mega Drain!" Drew ordered. Roserade brandished both of her flowers forward, and from them a green, glowing energy shot forth and struck Blaziken. Blaziken cried out and fell to his knees while Roserade stood tall again.

"Don't give up Blaziken! Try Flamethrower!" Blaziken staggered to his feet, but the flames that spewed from his beak were weak in comparison to every other fiery showing he'd had that day. May's breath caught in her throat.

It was a mistake, using Overheat so early. The move decreased Blaziken's subsequent special attacks, so no Fire-type move would ever be quite as powerful. May was mentally hitting herself over the head. She should've started with Flamethrower first and then gone to Overheat. Drew had capitalized on Blaziken's weakened state, drawing out further life from him using Mega Drain—and using it again, May was certain, would bring the battle that much closer to an end.

"Solar Beam!"

May blinked. Solar Beam? Mega Drain. Clearly Mega Drain would have been the better choice, so he could exhaust more of Blaziken's energy then strike a final blow with Solar Beam. But Solar Beam now? It would still be relatively easy to dodge. Was Drew using a different strategy that she hadn't cracked? Did he just feel bad for her because they'd… ? Or was it another mistake?

"Dodge, Blaziken!" The Fire-type dove out of the way just in time. "Now, Flamethrower again!" Avoiding the Solar Beam attack had given Blaziken a little time to recover, and his Flamethrower had regained some of its power. Yet, Roserade still withstood the attack. May chewed on her bottom lip and glanced at the screen. Drew was ahead of her point-wise, barely. She needed to turn this around.

"Mega Drain!"

Drew had reverted back to what May suspected should have been his initial strategy, but she had no plan to counter—and so it just happened. More of her points drained from her bar. She was nearly at zero.

"Solar Beam!" Drew immediately followed.

"Overheat!" May desperately called back, unsure what else to do. Both forces collided in the center of the field. Overheat, though technically the more powerful move, could not overcome the Solar Beam with Blaziken's loss of energy, and the attacks fizzled out.

The timer met its end. May jerked her head toward the screen, and her heart fell. Ultimately, she did not overtake Drew in points. He was the winner. The crowd cheered for his victory, though their reaction seemed subdued. Across the field, Roserade glanced back at her trainer with dissatisfaction, and Drew closed his eyes, sighing. May hardly noticed that, though, as she called Blaziken back to her.

"I'm sorry," she apologized to him. "I was off my game, and I let us both down."

She brought him back into his Poké Ball and left the Contest Hall in a hurry. She couldn't bear to see how it ended; more importantly, she couldn't bear to face Drew again.

May cried when she returned to her room in the Pokémon Center. She had started tearing up even before she had left the Contest Hall, but it was when she found herself totally alone that she really began to cry.

May threw herself down onto her bed and let out a sob. She was humiliated. That had to have been her worst showing since her days as a rookie. She made every possible mistake, and there was nothing at all impressive in her performance to at least ameliorate the egregiousness of her errors.

Worse, her head was pounding again with dehydration, and she was feeling sore between her legs. The dull pain reminded her of everything that had happened earlier that afternoon, and she felt a hard knot form in her lower abdomen for it. She and Drew had sex. She had sex, for the very first time, with her rival. And the emotional toll had cost her victory. How could she be so stupid?

May lifted her head and wiped at her eyes. Her mascara smeared across her fingertips. It was the second time she had ruined her make-up that day, but she didn't care. She did not plan on going out again that evening. In fact, she wanted a shower, badly. She had been feeling gross with sweat and… stickiness… since her and Drew's earlier session. She dragged herself off her bed and into the private bathroom.

May turned on the water—scalding hot—and waited for it to heat up. In the meantime, she pulled down her skirt and underwear, shivering with revulsion as she did. The gooeyness in her underwear had only half-dried since that afternoon, making her feel even more gross. She pulled off her top next and tossed it carelessly to the side before stepping into the burning warmth of her shower.

She distracted herself with her routine, initially. Shampoo her hair. Condition her hair. Shave her legs. Wash her face. Rinse, lather, repeat. But as she started to run out of steps to take, May knew she would have to confront the thoughts burdening the back of her mind. After May rinsed the last bit of soap away, she sank to the bottom of the tub and just sat there hugging her knees, unwilling to move, unwilling to leave the comfort of the tub.

She and Drew. That had happened. They had crossed a line they could never uncross. In the heat of the moment, with the way he was making her feel and the way he was making her act, she had thought she was prepared to deal with the consequences of what happened afterward—but not if the consequences were this: a sniffling emotional wreck pruning in the tub of a shower. She felt quite pathetic.

Her and Drew's relationship had been fraught with romantic and antagonistic complexities for a long time, of course. May had long ago acknowledged to herself that she sort of, maybe, wanted them to enter a relationship together. That "sort of, maybe" had always been the one thing holding them back after all their years flirting with becoming a proper couple, though.

She valued their rivalry. She valued how he could light a fire under her, how he pushed her to be better, to perform better. She knew he valued the same. Neither, May was certain, would have ever become a Top Coordinator without the other to motivate them. So the question always was: Would becoming romantically involved, officially, interfere with their rivalry and, by extension, their growth as trainers?

May wanted to believe no. She wanted to believe they could strike that balance between being friends and rivals and lovers. But she waffled just as much as Drew on the answer, hence why for years they could share a kiss one night, then fight the next day and disappear for two weeks until they ran into each other at the next contest.

This was no simple kiss, though. This wasn't even a make-out session that had grown a little heated (they'd had one or two of those, too). Getting turned on, to put it delicately, had been an accident, but what followed was a series of purposeful decisions that led to her being pressed up against a wall with him deep inside her. There was no ignoring that or playfully pretending it hadn't happened.

May finally turned off the water. She was hungry. The only things she had eaten all day were a breakfast sandwich from one of the local cafés and that stupid Lumiose Galette. She still didn't want to go out, but she would at least get something from the Pokémon Center cafeteria. She dried off and threw on some much-desired freshly laundered clothing—something comfortable.

It was nearly 4:30 p.m. The contest would most definitely be over by now, May figured; she had sat the shower for an absurdly long time. She didn't want to check the results, though. She didn't want to know who won. Or, really, she didn't want to know if it was Drew who won. Maybe it was petty, but it would make her heart hurt to know Drew had succeeded when she had failed so miserably.

Just as she had towelled off her hair and put it into a damp ponytail, May heard a knock at the door. May blinked and looked its way.

"Yes?" May inquired, wondering if it was room service.

"May, it's me."

May's breath caught, and she felt her blood run cold. She sorely wished she hadn't said anything, that she had pretended she wasn't there. Doy, of course it wasn't room service—it was late afternoon! She didn't want to talk to Drew. She wasn't ready. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do.

Still, he knew she was there now, and there was nothing she could do about it. May sucked in her breath. "It's unlocked. You can come in.

Drew did so. May immediately noticed that he looked like a mess—ruffled hair, ruffled clothes, a grim expression. He was still in his outfit from the contest. He had probably come straight from the Contest Hall to see her. May wasn't sure what to make of that.

"I… I tried to find you after our battle," he said.

"I left," May said.

"Oh."

Silence. A deadly, uncomfortable silence. Neither were able to look each other fully in the eye. Her eyes were watching his hands instead as he leaned back against a table across from her bed, gripping the edges. She couldn't tell exactly what he was looking at, but it definitely wasn't anything above her waist. Eventually, Drew did clear his throat to speak again.

"We should talk about what happened this afternoon," he said.

May swallowed and nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. She sat down on the edge of the bed, hugging herself. She still couldn't make herself look him in the face.

"I didn't mean for any of that to happen," Drew went on. May said nothing, but she felt her chest hurt, though she couldn't quite explain why. "I got carried away. I think we probably both did."

It sounded like a break-up for a relationship that never really existed, May bitterly thought. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply but still said nothing. When she opened her eyes again, she looked at Drew with a low, indirect gaze. She could tell he was struggling with his words and probably wanted her to say something, too.

"I guess," was all May could manage. It was an utterly unhelpful response, she knew. Drew floundered more.

"Well, I just… I... I don't know, I don't want what happened to get in the way of anything," he continued. "I know it's been difficult between you and I for a long time, but I want to finally resolve this… this thing and move forward."

Something unexpectedly snapped inside May. She hadn't known what she'd wanted to say or even what she'd just wanted—until he said that. She remembered with perfect clarity what had run through her mind right before she'd consented to him; she remembered believing, finally, there was no way they could return to the status quo. Apparently, he thought differently.

May looked at him in the eye now incredulously.

"Oh, right, I see now," she said venomously.

"What?" Drew looked confused.

"Now that you've got fucking me out of your system, we can just let everything go back to normal." The curse rang out like a gunshot, and it jolted both of them—May most of all. She never spoke like that, and it startled her more than it did Drew, whom she was pretty sure had never heard her ever say anything even remotely crass. It was almost like another person was speaking, and it caused her voice to break even as she angrily went on. "Well, too bad! You can't take it back. It can't ever be normal again!"

Arceus, she was crying again. She hated that she was crying again and especially that she was crying now when she really just wanted to show Drew how furious she felt.

"What?!" Drew blanched. "No!" He hurriedly crossed to her side and tried to grasp her shoulders, but she jerked away from his touch. "No, it's isn't like that at all! That's not what I meant."

She wasn't willing to listen yet, so she spat out, "Fine, so let's just become rivals-with-benefits so you can keep crushing me in battle and breezing through your contest career!"

Now it was Drew's turn to look incredulous.

"May, I lost," he emphasized, "to a rookie."

The whirlwind of emotion in May's head came to a screeching halt. "You what?" she asked.

Drew smiled weakly, resting his hand atop hers. "I was matched up with Anaïs Laurent in the second round. She decimated me. It was pretty bad." May was stunned, and she said nothing. Drew stood up only briefly to move to the spot on the bed beside May, still holding her hand. "Maybe you didn't notice, but I wasn't exactly in prime form during our battle. Roserade was disappointed with me. Then after I couldn't find you after the battle to talk, I became worse, and it showed."

May's lips twitched into a weak smile, too. "Did you forget a seal again?" she managed a little tease.

"Ha ha, no," Drew said dryly. "I remembered to put on a seal that time. You don't have much room to speak anyway, Ms. Bubbles. Although, you probably did come out on top today out of the two of us. If you thought you were embarrassing, trust me, you should watch the playback on the second round."

"I'd have to disagree, because apparently, I lost to the guy who lost to a rookie," May said.

"Well, that is true."

They both laughed then. May turned her hand up so Drew could lace his fingers through hers. She leaned against his shoulder, and Drew rested his head atop hers, both enjoying the moment of respite. May had finally calmed down and was ready to talk, for real. And Drew, May noted, seemed more at ease and more able to find the right words to say.

"I was thinking about what you said earlier today," he began again after a little while, "about why isn't it possible that we can be rivals and friends and something more at the same time."

May let out a short breath. "Well, clearly, we proved we can't handle it," she said.

"No, I think you were right the first time," Drew disagreed. "There isn't any reason why we can't be all three at once."

"Other than it makes us terrible coordinators?"

"Just listen," Drew said, a little exasperated. "What happened… us having sex—" He finally said the word. "—we might not have intended for it to have happened right then, but I think it was inevitable that it did. It was the result of years of us not dealing with… our feelings for each other, and it finally just came to a boiling point. And we lost our heads because of it."

May nodded against him, agreeing.

"But I think we can get this right, and it won't ever have to be that way again," he continued. May shyly looked up at him, their gazes connecting. His eyes were a gorgeous forest green in the dimming light, and May felt her heart beat just a little faster. Drew tightened his hold on her hand before finishing, "I want us to be together."

"I do, too," May admitted.

"Then let's make it official."

"And how do you propose we do that?" May asked, her voice dropping lower.

"Oh come on May, at least let me take you on a date before we go for a second round," Drew teased.

May almost looked offended. "I wasn't—" she blustered. "I didn't mean—" She stopped herself, turning red in the face while Drew stifled a laugh. "I wasn't implying that, but I did enjoy myself and—and—"

Drew hushed her. "Hey, it's fine. I enjoyed it, too," he said. "I was just making fun." May was still blushing hard and pouting, so Drew smiled, stood up, and pulled her to her feet as well, now holding both her hands in his. "So, dinner?"

May regathered herself. "That would be nice, actually," she said. "I am hungry." Now that they were on the same page with him admitting he liked the sex, too, May felt more comfortable in adding, "Besides, we can always come back here afterward."

Now Drew was blushing. "Y-Yeah, I suppose we can," he said. It was at that point May leaned forward and captured the kiss she had been missing all afternoon, ever since he had left the dressing stall. She was pleased that Drew eagerly reciprocated, feeling him smile against her lips.

"So what do you have in mind for food?" Drew asked after they broke apart.

May hummed thoughtfully. "Those Lumiose Galettes were pretty good," she said.

"Again?"

"What do you mean again? You barely ate yours!"

"Let's call it dessert."

"I knew you just came over to see me," May said smugly.

"And aren't you glad I did?" Drew replied, equally smug. "'Cause none of this would have probably happened today if I hadn't." They laughed again as May pulled him through the door, now certain they were prepared to face whatever consequences their new relationship would bring—together.

Fin.

Note: Thank you for reading! And yes, before anyone asks, I am still working on finishing The Middleground and The Ash Connection III. I appreciate your ongoing support. A special thanks to my friends Kelly (kasuria) and Samia (captshirogane) for helping me edit and revise this story.