Work Text:
Just as Burgh’s gym was about to close for the evening, he gets a call.
It’s part of a routine at this point.
He bids Clyde and the clowns farewell as he steps into the night breeze of Castelia, unbothered by the usual hustle and bustle and the occasional flash of a camera.
It’s easy to slip on a dazzling smile and a gentle wave to his fans, even as Smiley- his darling Leavanny, hurriedly pushes him off to the alleyways to get a moment’s peace.
He never forgets to pull his coat closer to his body or to pull down the brim of his hat when he makes his way through the alleys of Narrow Street, barely acknowledging the side glances he gets from the roughnecks and punks that frequent the area.
It was already a hassle trying to convince them to leave the back alleys of the sewer, and as long as they weren’t actively harassing the trainers and workers, he wouldn’t entertain the requests of the mayor to shoo them away.
He minds his own business as long as they mind their’s. An unspoken rule known by all.
But he feels like, tonight, this rule was broken.
He and Smiley pick up the hushed whispers of a few folk, claiming that their buddy Ricky had gotten into a heated discussion with some punk of a child. Smiley worriedly tugs at his coat with a cry, thinking of the same thing as his trainer.
His student had gotten into trouble again. That was what Officer Jenny told him.
He didn’t try appealing to emotions or talking with her through the Xtransceiver as he usually would. He merely requested for her to be kind to the boy and to treat him to a warm meal instead of dragging him off with her to the station for a scolding.
Winter was coming, and it was an unbearably difficult season for his student and the rest of the league.
Instead of a police station, he drops by Cafe Sonata and sees Officer Jenny by the counter, frowning at the small boy on the seat next to her’s.
The waiter pays her no mind, but offers a kind and gentle voice to the child as he sets down a glass of warm milk and a plate of Lava Cookies. By his feet is a Lillipup, fur sopping wet and face caked in dirt, but eagerly lapping a bowl of Moomoo Milk.
Officer Jenny doesn’t bother to keep quiet when she sees him, even as the other patrons look away from the musician’s performance to hush her. Her heels click on the floor as she makes her way towards the gym leader, one fist clenched in frustration.
Smiley stands by his side as he puts on the most reassuring smile he could muster after a hard day’s work. “Miss Officer Jenny, it’s a pleasure to see you-”
“Mister Burgh, if this keeps up, I’m afraid we’re going to have to have this reported to the mayor,” She cuts him off, following it with several jabs to his chest with that manicured nail of her’s. “This is not going to reflect well on the rest of the league if you keep letting-”
She finds her words, trying to be kind, but she can’t.
“This delinquent run about and get away with it. I thought you had a leash on him already? After that fight he got into last month, and getting involved with that illegal tournament at the park-”
He doesn’t want to, but he finds himself grabbing her wrist as gently as he could, pulling it away from his clothes.
Elesa and Skyla would have his head for this, he’s aware, but he’s not a fan of the words she was using to describe his student.
Talking about him in this manner as if he wasn’t within an earshot.
“I’m aware. It was my mistake,” He lets her go, and Smiley’s shifting in his side seemed to have sent the message to the officer. “And he’s completely my responsibility. You know how teenagers are. Moody and all that.”
He doesn’t miss the way his student glances at him with a glare, before returning to his plate of Lava Cookies.
Seems like he got a busted lip and a bloodied nose from whatever confrontation he had with that Ricky fellow, but he’ll deal with that later.
Officer Jenny’s face is flushed red from the barely concealed frustration. “Mister Burgh, no offense,”
He was bracing himself for the bruising of a lifetime.
“But I don’t think that, whatever you and those triplets are doing-” Nice of her to include the Striaton brothers in Burgh’s slip-up, he’ll make sure Cress knows later. “Is going to work. This child needs his parents, he needs to go home, he doesn’t need whatever training you’re making him go through. He needs help .”
Too quickly, poisonous words spill from his lips. “With all due respect, officer, the police and the media are the reason my student can’t just ‘go home’ as you’re telling him to.”
His student doesn’t turn to watch their confrontation, but his arm stops halfway as he reaches for the last Lava Cookie on the plate. His fingers curl into his palm and he pulls away, the waiter noticing his hesitance and asking him what’s wrong.
Burgh bites his lip, but he can’t find himself trying to be kind. He knows they’re just doing their job, but..
“He is the league’s responsibility,” He repeats that in his head and in the mirror every morning. “Everything he’s gone through, everything he’s lost, all of it is because of the league’s failures. And that isn’t helped by the fact that every second of his life since that day a year ago,”
The rising castle, the hooded figures, the false king, the Hero of Truth-
“Every adult in the world decided to be out to get him and his friends and family specifically. You helped out with that operation at Skyarrow Bridge, didn’t you? To stop the flow of people from hounding Nuvema Town? To stop them from harassing kids? You of all people should know why this kid is the way he is now, so-”
His student brings his arms closer to his chest and his shoulders start to tremble. The Lillipup by his feet worriedly paws at his pants and the waiter scrambles to get him a tissue.
He doesn’t continue.
He would be no better than her if he did this.
Smiley thinks the same, pulling on his arm and disapprovingly clicking his antennae.
Taking a deep breath and a step back from the officer, he pulls his hat down to his chest and bows. “I’m sorry. That was very rude and unprofessional of me. I got a little bit heated there, didn’t I?”
Even the chuckle he forces out of himself is bitter.
Officer Jenny doesn’t look shaken by his outburst, but he sees the way the light in her eyes changed when he brought up the operation at Skyarrow Bridge.
An operation he requested of them, out of sheer desperation. An operation he requested as a useless remedy to a condition that could no longer be treated.
With a sigh, tension leaves the rest of her body and she pulls down her cap to obscure her eyes from his vision.
“This is your last warning. I hope you know that,” Oh, he does, especially with the way she delivers it to him. “I’ll let him off easy for tonight, but don’t say that me and the guys at the station never did anything to try to make it up to him. What he’s doing now- getting into fights, lashing out, it’s all on him.”
Bullshit.
“Give him a good scolding later, alright?”
He hopes his own lip isn’t bleeding from how hard he’s biting down, but with a curt nod, Officer Jenny leaves the cafe.
The sound of music fills his ears, but he can’t bring himself to enjoy it for tonight.
Instead, his body relaxes as he takes off his coat and drapes it over his student, whose face was buried in his palms as his body trembled with each sob.
The world did this to him.
It was another reminder of Burgh’s failures, as both a gym leader and an adult.
The rest of the League, the media, the officers- none of them were exempt from this guilt.
And they had no right to decide that what they were doing for him was enough.
It would never be.
“Hey, Cheren,”
At least this time, his voice is friendlier and warmer than the one he used towards Officer Jenny.
Not friendly enough, perhaps. Cheren’s sobs didn’t cease.
“So, uh, you haven’t had dinner yet, right? Wow, those brothers are gonna give me a scolding for that one. Say, why don’t we eat dinner here? Anything you want, my treat.”
Why didn’t she buy him anything other than milk and cookies? Ridiculous, the adults of this region are.
As expected, that’s not enough to stop Cheren from crying. Even when Smiley soothingly rubs his back or his Lillipup nuzzles against his leg, it’s never enough.
Nothing could replace the gentle embrace he was desperately craving for. Not from his mentors or even his parents, but from the friends he missed so dearly yet found himself distanced from.
Hilda, that Battle Subway prodigy. Bianca, that bubbly assistant-in-training.
Hilbert, the supposed champion of Unova.
Hilbert, the Hero of Truth.
Hilbert, the apple of Cheren’s eye and his best friend.
Hilbert, who had disappeared the previous winter without so much as a proper explanation.
Only a letter, one that was written for Cheren’s eyes only.
A burden he had to carry all by himself.
No wonder the child was acting out.
Burgh quickly orders the two most expensive meals on the cafe menu, and the waiter leaves them be. Cheren’s shoulders stop shaking, but when he pulls his palms out of his face, they’re unsurprisingly soaked with tears and snot.
And a little bit of blood from the busted lip that Officer Jenny didn’t bother patching him up for.
He didn’t want to be angry at her for not going beyond her job, but dragons , wasn’t she an officer?
You’d think they’d train their guys for basic first aid.
He pushes that thought away. He’d ask about that some other time.
He fishes out a handkerchief from his pants and offers it to his student, letting him take the time to clumsily wipe his hands clean. When he’s done, he takes the damp handkerchief between his fingers and sprays his palms with a sanitizer he received from Elesa, one that smelled like Applins.
Cheren looks at the reddish liquid in his palms for a moment, before croaking out “Aren’t you grossed out?”
“Of what?”
“Your handkerchief. You’re holding it with your hands. It’s-”
“Gross. Yeah, well,” He stuffs it back into his pocket. “You do these sorta things a lot for other folks when you get older, especially your students. It stops feeling gross at some point.”
That’s a lie, but that wasn’t important right now.
What’s important was that Cheren stopped crying, even if his eyes were still puffy, there was still a little snot dripping from his nose, and his bottom lip was still quivering-
He makes a mental note to bring him to a clinic after dinner.
And to ask him how and why he got into a fight with a grown man.
Those roughnecks at the sewers had a lot of explaining to do. They had a quiet agreement that the gym leader wouldn’t be on their trail as long as they kept their hands to themselves.
Hurting his student warranted more than an apology.
Despite his promises to Officer Jenny, the thought of scolding him for his alleged delinquency quickly vanishes when he sees Cheren’s small smile at Smiley’s attempts in making him laugh. Lillipup- even though it was still dirty, had climbed up Cheren’s lap and was pawing at Burgh’s coat with happy little yaps.
That’s fine.
Even if the coat was made of delicate material, one that couldn’t be washed so thoughtlessly, anything was worth the rare instances where Cheren felt safe.
He had agreed to it a long time ago that every inconvenience, no matter how bad or mild it was, was a well-deserved punishment from the universe for their failure with handling Team Plasma.
Because even if they were out of the picture for now, would Ghetsis’ ambition die alongside the disappearance of N?
Were the league allowed to carry on their lives as normal, as if they didn’t allow mere children to carry the burden of being heroes?
Was Officer Jenny allowed to make the decision that they were doing enough, when their failure to properly wrap up Team Plasma’s case chased their new champion Hilbert away?
Burgh didn’t think so.
Even if the guilt ate at his very core every single day, even if the rest of the world looked at him and the league with their disappointed eyes, Burgh would keep his promise to himself.
He would not allow Cheren to fall into further despair.
He could not let Team Plasma’s influence linger on him like a parasite.
He, and the rest of the league, would save him.
“Hey, after this,” The waiter swiftly delivers their meals so as to not interrupt their conversation, and Burgh makes another mental note for the evening to leave the most generous tip he could muster. “Why don’t I stay at your place for the night?”
Rightfully so, Cheren looks at him strangely as he takes the pickles out of his sandwich.
“Don’t you have work in the morning?” He asks in that icy tone of his, but Burgh knew he never meant to bite. .
“Hm, I was thinking of closing the gym for a day,” Another lie, but he can sort out the nitty gritty details with Clyde. “We can use the time tomorrow to further your training. I think it’s a day off for the triplets too, we can take you somewhere else for a change of pace.”
Somewhere that doesn’t involve sewers and territorial punks.
“Self-study’s good, and I’m proud of you for being as hardworking as you are with your training. You can show us what you’ve learned on your own so far, and we can help you figure out what you need to work on!”
An excuse to keep him out of trouble.
“What’s more, it’s been awhile since we all got to view your progress together. If we see you’ve hit the mark, Lenora will definitely consider you a worthy successor!”
The cherry on top of this cake of lies, but he knows Cheren would consider it more if he had a goal to work towards.
A distraction from his grief.
Cheren ponders for a moment, fingers on that still busted lip as he hummed.
“Well, okay. Lillipup and I need other opponents after all. We won’t improve if we train in one place,” His fingers comb his Pokemon’s hair. “Especially if we keep battling the same opponents.”
For a second, there was a mischievous glint in his eye.
Suddenly, Officer Jenny’s warning from earlier had a little bit of weight into it.
He hammers down anything else he wants to say, however.
Everything he’s doing, everything he’s going through, Burgh reminds himself that all of it was a result of their negligence.
This was something he and the league had to shoulder.
“Alright, that settles it!” His tone is chipper, but he feels a thousand weights on his shoulders. “Let’s do our best tomorrow, shall we?”