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ada254 · 8 months

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#I'mAllThree

The longer I sit on this, the more outdated it's going to get so one singular on-time happy (?) birthday to Aidan Oak fjsjdjfdj but this is mainly for @pkmn-downtheline, and enthusiasts of the very belated 1-year anniversary of the "bi Misha" debacle kjdfnkjdf. Happy belated Pride, even, while we're at it!!! #teenage years, #liberties were taken, #homophobic homosexual

Was it possible to drown yourself in your own drink?

Reid wondered about that, as he used his straw to slosh the pink fruity blend into another self-contained slushpool.

Sure, he’d have to take a…say…unconventional (?) approach to pull it off. One that—and he only admits, just slightly, in the very back corners of his mind—would probably be too complex for his own brain to even come up with but—it’d be worth it. Probably.

He felt his eyelids get even heavier.

No, definitely.

When the tiny vortex finished its little journey, and settled back down, the result didn't produce any sort of relief. So, he suppressed the urge to take another sip and instead, glared as hard as he could.

Because, maybe, just maybe, if he stared hard enough—

“No,” Calla casually cut in, right before she took another long sip of her own Pecha Berry smoothie. “If you’re going to drown yourself, you need a lot more drink than that.”

Reid lifted his head, and his grasp went loose from the sharp bend of the straw. The purple plastic twacked.

“…Twin telepathy is real.”

Calla swallowed a garbled hum, one quiet enough to come off as "cute"—heavy air quotations needed—and not obnoxious, her pen stilling against the table napkin she was doodling on.

“Maybe!” She popped the straw out of her mouth, shifting the pen in one hand, and taking a moment to straighten out her flimsy makeshift sketchpad. “Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because you keep mumbling out loud?” She playfully shrugged. “Who can say?”

Reid stuck out his tongue, before slowly pushing his drink aside. Calla just rolled her eyes, as she added one last, flowery line to her design concept. He couldn’t really see the “finished” product from this angle, but that didn’t matter once Calla spun it around.

Calla leaned back, her drink coming with her. “Thoughts?”

Reid shared a thumbs-up. “Looks cool!”

It reminded him of a viral fashion trend he saw on his PikaTok’s For You page.

She happily hummed in response, folding up the napkin and tucking it into an open pocket of her messenger bag. Calla then turned to her box of Kalosian fries that she had managed to somehow leave untouched until now.

Once she started taking envious looking bites, the crushing boredom hit him again like a punch to the gut.

Reid, whose arms and head collapsed against the table, moaned. “When’s this stupid Q&A going to start already? I feel like we’ve been waiting for hours now.”

“It’s only been 20 minutes.” Calla pulled out her phone, a fry poking out of her mouth. Reid looked at the screen to confirm, and internally screamed.

Or maybe, he did scream, because Calla was staring at him now. After a long silent beat, she picked up another fry and wordlessly hovered it near the smooshed, open corner of his mouth.

Reid groaned again, but accepted the greasy offering.

It doesn’t solve anything.

In fact, it kinda made him wish he had ordered a side of fries for himself when Calla got up to get seconds.

Fries were…good. Sure, some Choco-Choos or a Pi’Dove bar would be better...but fries were good.

The thought alongside the snack made him feel the tiniest bit better for a good ten minutes.

“Seconds. It’s only been 10 seconds.” Reid was about 10 seconds away from calling Uncle Oak or Goh about his confirmed theory about twin telepathy. But then, Calla tilted her head in turn. “I sacrificed one of my crispier fries for you and you only looked better for 10 seconds.” She showed him her phone again, pouting.

This time Reid resisted the urge to scream, and instead, laid his forehead flat against the table, letting the air be compressed out of him slowly.

“I’m not going to make it.”

—

Reid had made it.

Somehow. Even when he waited through an additional 15 minutes, on top of the expected 30, because Aidan decided he wanted to be fashionably late.

The minute, second, hour—whatever—this Q&A was over, Reid was going to run him over with his skateboard.

Except not really.

But also, yes really.

A high pitched squeal from the table to his right brought him out of his thoughts. Reid tiredly cocked his head around, and watched as an eager “Striver” waved their hand to answer the generic “Who’s excited to be here today?” Aidan was shooting off.

Because Aidan had decided it would be “fun” to do a mini Q&A with the audience for the pre-show, instead of…not.

Of, you know, not doing that. And who knows, maybe, starting the show he was already late for?

But who was Reid to argue that against a crowd of rabid stans who had already overwhelmed his puny groan of dejection?

So, here they were.

Reid sighed, hand slumped against chin, as he adjusted his gaze downwards, towards the faraway stage. (Aidan really couldn’t have scored any better seats for his “best friends”, huh?)

“By show of force, how many of you guys here today are extroverts?” A majority of the people in the crowd raised their hands. Calla included. With a speedy spunk, Reid might add.

Weirdly enough, Reid noticed Aidan wasn’t raising his own hand, even though he was just as much of an extrovert as Calla. But, he chalked it up to some weird emcee role thing and pushed it aside.

Nodding, as he surveyed the crowd, Aidan continued, “Okay, okay, now—how many introverts?”

Aidan shared another blinding smile of sly encouragement, probably confusing introvert traits with shyness, again. Even still, Reid could feel the smoothie in his stomach acting up.

So, he raised his hand, just halfway, alongside the small batch of people in the crowd who were also raising theirs. As Reid looked around, he noticed that most of his fellow introverts-in-arms, in this crowd, at least, were female.

Slightly embarrassed now, Reid lowered his hand even further. He then hid his face in his smoothie with—what he had intended to be—a quick, tiny gulp.

“Great! Now…how many bisexuals?” Reid all but nearly choked.

Uhhh….hello?!

Calla, even Calla, actually broke out of her food-induced spell, and paused mid-fry bite. “Huh?”

There was a distinct moment of silence, before a murmur began to ripple through the crowd, as one or two women in the front cautiously raised their hands. Two, three more, five, ten, more spreading throughout the crowd followed, and then—hollering and solitary bouts of screams of either ally ship or relatability came out from the back. Probably the latter, as Reid watched a sizable selection of men’s hands shoot up.

Aidan shot a spontaneous finger-gun in recognition of the growing excitement—the act riled up the audience even MORE.

And…it’s one of those weird “crowd work” things.

Reid heaved a sigh, his heart starting to settle back inside his chest.

And even though Reid’s shoulders should have also been released from tension and sunk back down, he felt one of them only get pulled higher. Along with his arm. “Calla?!”

Calla also seemed to have gotten over Aidan being Aidan, as she grinned at him with no sense of guilt. “What? You’re bi, too!”

“Well, yeah! But—“ Calla began to wave his arm around and Reid reluctantly watched as Aidan’s dazzling eyes trailed across the crowd, row after row, until right up to the balcony where their table was. Aidan noticed them then, prompting Calla to wave Reid’s arm for him even more aggressively, flushing Reid’s face completely red.

Reid decided to try communicating with him in the sheepish smile he shared: Look what I have to deal with—please, send help.

The message must have gotten lost in translation.

Or something like that, because Aidan only tensed up, frozen for the longest beat, until he forced the fakest of camera-worthy smiles their way alongside a brief wave. A wave, Reid suspected, was only directed towards Calla—the silver charm on his right wrist shone bright in his vision—before looking away.

Oh.

The balcony was full of shrieks and gushing admirers, but Reid felt numb.

Reid’s own smile fell apart. The embarrassment set into his face, like a red stain of shame. He tore his arm away from Calla’s grip, who released it with no resistance.

Calla giggled, staring straight ahead at Aidan. “He’s such a poser.”

“Y-yeah.”

Reid took a deep breath, as he pushed all his feelings down, and spit out: “The worst.”

…Sometimes, Aidan was mean mean. All Reid could do when it happened was…not dwell on it.

He didn’t mean anything by it.

The overly enthusiastic cheers and applause called both Calla’s and his attention back to the man of the hour.

“I’m so honored to have such a diverse crowd here today! One alive with energy—can we get another show of that for RotoPhone?”

The audience happily complied, including Calla, as Aidan’s RotoPhone rushed across every lane of the crowd and even managed to glide across the balcony area. When RotoPhone passed by them, specifically, Calla yelled even louder while Reid swallowed his pride, faked a woo, and showed off a weak peace sign.

Then, just like that, RotoPhone returned to Aidan’s side to finish recording the main event.

“Thanks Rotom,” Aidan gave his partner Pokemon another cheeky finger-gun, somehow causing another batch of piercing squeals and giggles to erupt from the audience.

Reid wasn’t sure what the deal was.

And, for once, Aidan seemed to agree, because even he managed to be caught off guard by the reaction. Luckily for him, it was a minor lapse of a scrunching eyebrow that only Reid and Calla could have recognized.

(Well—okay, ”and Calla”, if Calla wasn’t making eyes at her Pecha-dipped fry at the moment.)

“Uh, anyways, I’ve kept you guys waiting long enough. Should we get this—“

A hand shot up from a girl, standing dead center of the front row, and with a sleeping Linoone draped around her neck, like a scarf, who barely bristled with the motion. “Aidan, pardon the interruption but you didn’t raise your hand for any of your own questions—what’s your answer?”

A sudden cloak of silence draped itself over the crowd.

But then,

“Arceus, she’s bold.”……………...”But I gotta agree!”

A ripple of a murmur rolled into the crowd at that, before escalating to their own calls of a mostly resounding approval: “YEAH!!”, “THANK you, queen!!”, “Yes, please, answer!!”, “The people need to know!!!”.

And one attempted groan of “oh, who gives a fuck?!” from one of their fellow balcony tables before they were actively shushed (and growled?) into oblivion.

Reid blinked in bewilderment, and reached for his smoothie to sip at it coolly.

Seriously, what was everyone’s deal?

Aidan also seemed to take a moment, blinking, as he stared into the crowd, until a rakish grin-turned-laugh took over his face—that left him shining brighter than ever.

That cool sip Reid was taking, quickly transformed into a burning gulp.

“What? That’s it?” Aidan waved a hand around, in a vague fashion, and his RotoPhone moved to angle itself in the middle of the girl and Aidan. And while Reid couldn’t physically see this from his seat, he knew RotoPhone’s camera lenses were focusing in for that perfect shot. He could even picture the exact imagery in his head from past memories.

Reid tucked a hand under his chin, leaning closer, too.

“Obviously—“ Reid nodded along, tapping his finger to the beat of his next words, and sucking the straw between his teeth. He’s an extrovert. “—I’m all three.”

Reid’s drink erupted out of his mouth—at the same time that he heard a wet clatter, a scrape of chair legs from the table behind, and an explosion of fangirlish (and some guyish) screeching.

The smoothie, luckily, had all spilled onto the floor and parts of the metal railing because of the way his head was facing forward to watch the unfolding circus act that Aidan—why does he do any of this—Oak decided to ring-lead today.

Because randomly bringing up “bisexuals” was a meme, but doubling down had….meaning.

(Reid aggressively ignored the Skye-sounding mental retort of “don’t you mean memeing?”)

Was Aidan…serious? Was that why he brought it up? Did Reid actually…..have a chance?

He brought a hand up to his mouth to wipe away the excess pink, but found his focus centered on his accelerating heart rate. It was like he had just placed in a Pokemon Race. He could feel his heart go boom, boom, boom.

But before he could spare any further thought to…that, Reid heard a sharp inhale. And suddenly, he knew he would die before figuring out if Aidan was insane, genuinely coming out, or insane AND genuinely coming out as bisexual. Because out of all the attempts on his life he survived to make it here, he knew. He knew he wouldn’t live through his twin’s wrath for making such a mess. Instinctively, his hands clenched and he felt the clear cup crinkle in his grip.

…Except, he shouldn’t be holding onto a cup. Not anymore. Because he remembered the clatter.

His head whipped over to Calla, who was staring wide-eyed not towards the stage, but down at her own hands that were dripping. Pecha pink slush was splattered all over the floor on her side, too. As well as the front of her shorts, and her—not so—white leggings.

Reid’s foot moved forward on reflex, and he winced at a plastic sounding crunch underneath the press of his sneaker. The sound echoed in his head like an omen.

Calla looked like she was about to cry.

This smoothie was fucking cursed.

Reid was in defense mode. “I’m so sorry, Calla! I’ll go buy you a new one right now—wait no, napkins!”

Reid knocked his chair back, kicking the legs of it back with a sharp scrape across the floor.

Big mistake (#2).

An ear-splitting howl punctured his hearing from behind him, even in the midst of a bunch of high-pitched squeals from the ground floor.

So, fun fact: Reid hadn’t realized that the growling from the guy behind him had been a bit too animalistic for a human. And that the culprit, instead, was an actual feline Pokemon. An enraged Liepard, in fact, whose trainer just so happened to be currently absent from his table.

Well, it was a nice life while it lasted.

Calla’s dark facade managed to temporarily break then, as she, too, noticed the Liepard now extending its claws in anticipation—and her twin probably sweating buckets.

“Reid, run.”

“Yeahhh—you don’t need to tell me twice!” Reid grabbed his board, jumping on it, just as Liepard swatted a paw at him as some sort of a warning shot. Except then, it pounced.

And now, Reid was skating away as fast as he could, ignoring the small commotion he was causing by trying to maneuver a clustered group of tables and for “blocking people’s views”.

Which yeah, sorry, he was just trying to out-skate a fucking Liepard with a vengeance. But, no, that was fine with everyone because, at least, it wasn’t blocking their view of their “newly crowned bisexual king”. (He just came out, people!)

Though, honestly, maybe the Liepard was an Aidan Oak stan, even in spite of its earlier nap, because it was managing to chase after him without jumping onto any tables or even going above eye level.

Either way, he hated it!

He swerved past a couple of girls, whose hands were conjoined, jumping up-and-down to catch Aidan’s attention. They hissed, just as much as the Liepard did. He yelled back the thousandth fleeting apology.

Past the last table, he—skateboard and all—smoothly hopped over the barricade set up against non-ticketed guests. Of course, his “friend” made the leap, just as easily. Even still, he felt a sigh of relief, as the road ahead seemed to clear.

He sped up, the world around him beginning to blur.

But, just as he was rounding the last corner that would take him fully out of view of the closed-off event, Reid spared one last glance to see what he could. Because apparently, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of Aidan, even in an actual life-or-death situation. Aidan was on the mic again.

(He had no idea if his stupid Q&A would ever start.)

“I am a triple threat for a reason,” Aidan winked, and shot off his signature salute but with one modification. Instead of using two fingers, he separated his thumb to capitalize on the “three”.

Reid let out the longest groan, and kicked his back foot against the ground with force.

He was going to kill him.

After he escaped, he was going to strangle him. Hands on his collar, face pulled close to his, to rattle him back-and-forth. And then, maybe, MAYBE, very casually, he would….blurt out that he’s been in love with him since they were 10. Before asking him out. But, only maybe.

Reid pushed forward, his heart pounding out of his chest, in imperfect staccato of squeaky wheels and sharpened paws on jagged purple tiling.

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After sending off a newly revitalized Calla to the Juice Shoppe with his dad’s credit card in hand, Aidan finally turned to address the sad Reid-shaped lump that had tumbled back to them in the middle of Calla’s brief recap of events.

“So? What in Arceus’ name happened to you?” Aidan cooly looked down at him.

“A Liep—“

“Never mind. I don’t want to hear it. But you need to be more careful.” Aidan reached for his face, grimacing at the scratches left scattered over his face. His fingers only briefly brushed against a particularly red one near the corner of his mouth, before Reid batted his hand away, flushing red.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

Aidan felt that uncomfortable twitchy something towards him again, the one that pulled him back, as he couldn’t help but stare at him. It’s not yearning. He’s not Calla. Reid’s not….He’s not—

He automatically pulled out his RotoPhone from his pocket, set on silent mode, to log into his social media. When his eyes are glued to the screen, he doesn’t have to think about all the annoying things. “Whatever, dude, just don’t make a scene next time. It looks bad on me.”

He said, instead of the “I was just looking out for you” that he held back in his throat.

Reid huffed, but didn’t fight back. Instead, he scrambled to get up from the ground on his own. Once he managed it, Reid covered his nose and began to wipe away the dust and debris he had collected from his haphazard trip. Aidan tightened the grip on his phone. There was a packet of tissues that were burning a hole in his pocket.

He made no movement for them.

“Fine, whatever,” was finally muttered out. And it was the last thing Aidan heard before tuning out, but apparently (and he learned this later), Reid had kept going—his voice quiet.

“But, forget that…I…wanted to ask you something….”

When his main Flitter account popped up, he ignored the influx of notifications and DMs he had gotten after the Q&A, and switched over to his secret The Young and the Pokémon fan account: @/incognitoflareon. It was named as such to align with his allegiance with Team Flareon/Jax Dyners. The obvious choice.

Anyone who was Team Vaporeon/Harold Dyners were idiots who didn’t understand Marcia Lynzel’s character arc and that what she needs most in a partner was passionate individuality and an unpredictable move set, and not the guy who stuck with the Boulder Guard strategy (and therefore Clara) for 10 years because it was “safe”.

…Okay nope, this was the kind of thinking that made him sound like a loser—he sounded like Briar. He needed to just scroll in peace.

But, remembering his brother kinda grossed him out, so he replied to some rando’s tweet talking about Team Vaporeon with a couple of barf emojis before scrolling past to find the memes about this week’s reveal of Larcenzia’s one-eyed ex-husband twice-removed. And her new Purrloin.

“—Are you even listening to me?!”

Aidan suddenly heard while speed reading through another tweet he disagreed with: a “meta” talking about Marcia’s secret affinity for water-types. For once, he decided to take the path less-traveled by, and forced himself to scroll past it, before answering honestly.

“No, what.”

Reid groaned. “Ugh, I’m being serious here! I just…you know…”

No, he didn’t know.

For some reason, Reid sounded nervous, or nervous enough, that Aidan looked back up. And Reid’s appearance matched his tone of voice. He was fidgeting, his gaze was turned sideways, and his cheeks were brushed with those delicate, little red streaks.

Aidan avoided looking at him directly. He did not have a good feeling about this.

“Okay, please spit it out before I lose my mind.”

“A-alright, geez!!…..it’s just….” Reid’s voice got disturbingly quiet as his face got even redder: “when….did you realize you were bi?”

Aidan’s Rotophone slipped from his fingers, causing a sharp, wavering craaack turned thud to strike against his eardrums like a gong that wouldn’t stop ringing.

It…wasn’t his Rotophone. Once it had escaped its trainer’s grip, the auto-wake feature had instantly unlocked, allowing his Rotom to save itself from Aidan’s usual habits. It had swiftly flown back into his pocket. He could even feel it vibrating in annoyance as he continued to think.

No, what Aidan heard crack was something else. His sanity.

“Excuse me?”

Aidan sputtered. “I’m not like you—”

Reid’s head shot up, and Aidan immediately retracted, hands up.

“I mean, you know I’m your biggest ally and all—#gaylivesmatter and all that!” Aidan pointedly ignored the exaggerated eye-roll Reid melted into, and instead, sharpened his own gaze. “But, I’m not gay. So, why would you even think that?”

Reid bit his lip, which Aidan knew meant: he was getting upset. Which also meant—

“Uh…because you said you were? Hope that helps.” Reid got snarky.

He legit could not have delivered that last bit any dryer. Aidan could feel his face twitching.

“When? Literally, when?!”

Reid cocked his head now, his eyebrows furrowed. Aidan couldn’t tell if it was from anger or confusion. Maybe, both: frustration. Either way, it was rich, coming from him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“ON WHAT—“ Aidan caught himself, and took the longest inhaling breath. Arceus, deep in the skies above, he’s a good person. So, why was he being forced to deal with this without his grande Hazelnut Bianco latte with his usual pattern, right now? “Obviously…not. Sooooo.“

Aidan gave him a look that was clearly meant to push Reid into giving it all up, but instead, Reid’s frustration was melting into genuine confusion. As if, Aidan was the crazy one here.

“You…HAVE to be messing with me. I mean I know it’s you but—there’s no way that Mr. #I’mAllThree didn’t know what he was saying.”

“I’m #AllWhatNow?”

He watched as Reid’s face went through a series of emotions—frustration, anger, concern, sadness?, contemplation—until it finally landed on contentment. Like he reached a miraculous revelation he didn’t want to share with Aidan.

But before Aidan could throttle him for the info—Reid coughed.

Or pretended to.

Reid had a smile on his face now, and it wasn’t a positive one. It was the type he made when he was holding back a laugh.

“…Dude, during the pre-Q&A—“

“Connngrats on the bisexuality!” Calla cheered, a skip in her step, as she approached with the latte he asked her to get while she was buying her “replacement smoothie”. Aidan was already speechless, but his face took on another wrinkle when he noticed the latte art. It was notably not his usual rosetta pattern he made sure to request, but instead, a shimmery, rainbow heart.

Calla picked up on the hard look Aidan must have been giving his latte art, and then nodded knowingly. “The Staryubucks employee mentioned it. I had no clue.” Reid finally lost it at that—laughing wildly.

Okay, something inside him was going to snap. And then, break him. What did he even say?!

All he did was get a temperature check of the crowd.

All he did was ask about introverts, extroverts, and bisexuals.

What about any of that—

Aidan had never more desperately scrambled for his phone than he had at that very moment. Jamming it on took a couple more button presses than usual because RotoPhone was weirdly still upset about the previous offense. Even though Aidan was clearly having a crisis. When the screen finally shone, his finger mashed the Flitter app. And then, the trending page.

#I’mAllThree

Aidan Oak

Bisexual

Arrested

Triple Threat

WE BEEN KNEW

#Harley’s Big Gay 20th Birthday Bash

Bi-vers

Allie Hayden

#fridayvibes

Aidan felt the color slowly seep out of him, just from the page alone, but ultimately jammed his thumb against the first topic that was currently being narrated to him in Reid’s voice via the previous mention that was now echoing throughout his head.

A rapid scroll through the reactions, memes, and more importantly—copypastas—of…his own words, and he finally understood.

Aidan had…mixed up the words bisexual and ambivert.

When Calla finally handed over his gay latte, with a painfully encouraging smile and noting that he seems “thirsty”, as Reid continued to laugh at him, Aidan briefly wondered if he could choke himself with it.

–End

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

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Bonus:

Two days later:

🤍 Calla Ketchum and 20 others liked this

Aidan Oak ☑️

@ triple_A_threat

Again, I am NOT bisexual. I happen to be straight, but I am also a fierce ally who believes that gay lives MATTER: #gaylivesmatter ☠️🔥. And bc of that, my merch collab w/ PokeStars of the Rainbow will continue as planned, w/ my face remaining on the bisexual/MLM beanies...3/24🧵

6:04 PM • April 25, 2045 • Twitter for RotoPhone

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Quote Tweets:

Linoone Lover 🌈

@ strivingfortripleAAA

Why did mlm auto-correct to MLM on his phone lol ☠️🔥