#declan .

Scorpius had never liked Declan.

Rune had introduced them two weeks after they’d started seeing each other. He never quite got the full story of how they met, but he could tell just by watching her how infatuated she was with the blue haired man. Not quite stars in her eyes, but a fascination that he’d never seen her direct at a person before. Declan didn’t look at her the same way.

It didn’t sit right with Scorpius, but he supposed it was still a new relationship. Or perhaps Declan simply showed his affections differently. As long as Rune was happy, it wasn’t his place to judge. At least, not out loud. He’d keep quiet until she voiced her frustrations and then he would step in.

But the more he saw of Declan over the next few months, the more he disliked the man. It started with little things, like Declan always needing to pull Rune away when he was talking to his cousin, or how Declan always managed to sit between them. Innocuous things, easily written off, but not with the frequency they did.It had stopped being accidental after the fourth time in a row, and he started to see the pleasure in his smirk whenever he interrupted them. 

He was trying to come between them and it was working. 

Rune denied it when Scorpius confronted her about it. He made the mistake of putting her on the defensive from the start, but he was scared. Scared of losing the only bit of family he’d thought he’d have forever. But he’d started it wrong, and Rune fought back, glares and hisses and how dare he. 

It was the worst fight they’d ever had.

Things weren’t the same between them after that. In some ways, Scor felt like he’d driven away his best friend. The one person he had thought would always be there, that he trusted more than anyone in the world, had all but left. They talked, they passed in the hall, but it was different. Colder. Ruined. 

He threw himself into his final work for university, into his relationship with Ellie (who admittedly loved the extra time, for all she too was worried over Rune), anything to fill the hole of what he’d lost. It wasn’t the same, nothing ever would be, but it was enough for the moment, enough to get him by. 

And then, a month later, as he returned late from an evening at the pub with his classmates, he found her sitting on the floor at the base of his bed. His cousin was beautiful, even he’d admit it, but she looked absolutely terrible at that moment. Her hair was a mess, there were bags under her eyes, and he just stood there, both staring at the other for a moment.

“…Rune.”

“Scor…”

And then he’d swept her up in a hug and buried his face in her shoulder and she clung to him and it was like those two months had never happened. There was no need for a verbal apology, it was something they’d both understood. It was just a passing fight. They were ok. They still had each other and nothing could or would ever change that.

That was a late night for Scorpius. They’d settled on his bed to talk, to work through everything that had happened, but there were cracks in the small smile Rune wore. Cracks that grew larger the longer they talked. It took less than ten minutes for the mask to fall entirely and for Rune to break down in front of him. When was the last time he’d seen Rune cry? Years at least, and yet here she was, bawling her eyes out.

He only got the full story once she’d calmed a bit. How she’d fallen head over heels for Declan, and how she’d thought he’d felt the same. How they’d trained together for Pokemon battles - him for the league challenge, her to defend it. How he’d wanted all of her attention, and how she’d let him take it. At the cost of everyone else, Scorpius had interjected, and Rune had simply gone quiet, miserable, before trying to continue.

The battle in the gym, the old bylaw, the week of trying to pretend it was fine, how he broke up with her for not being ok with everything that had happened. “He said I should be happy for him,” she said, bitterly, furious and heartbroken and defeated all at once, and Scorpius just held her tighter, angry for her.

There was more talk after she talked her heart out, more crying, even a little from Scorpius himself. But it would stay between them, just as their secrets and weaknesses always had. The trust between them hadn’t been broken.

It was a week before their grandfather was home, and Rune had to tell him about the gym badge that had been handed out. He couldn’t blame Rune for the archaic rule that had won the badge on a technicality, but there was disappointment in his voice, and Scorpius could tell Rune felt it to her core. 

It took Rune two weeks to get out of her own head enough to leave her room. Scorpius would sit with her, they’d talk, but his cousin hadn’t quite returned in one piece. He couldn’t blame her.

It took a month before he saw her smile again. Admittedly, he hadn’t done the best job of trying to cheer her up, as he had wanted to give her time to think things though, but one stupid joke and one little smile had changed that line of thought.


It was another two months before Rune could even bear to look at her own tattoo. The gym badge she had been so proud of inheriting was inked into the skin at her hip bone, and he’d seen her go back to one piece bathing suits in an effort to not have to see it when they went down to the river.

At five months, Rune approached him about going to the United States for their Pokemon League challenge. Scorpius was surprised, as just the previous night at dinner their grandfather had mentioned considering retiring from everything and passing things along to them. But then he looked at her, really looked, and he understood. She wasn’t the confident young woman she’d been at this point last year. If she ever wanted to succeed their grandfather, she needed to find that again, to put Declan behind her.

So he gave her his blessing and helped her prepare. One month later he said goodbye as she left for the airport, and he saw a lightness in her heart that he hadn’t seen in months. She’d be ok, he was certain, but he was going to be calling her every day just to make sure.

They eventually settled on phone calls every three days, with texts and pictures in between. He got to watch her slowly return to the Rune he knew she could be, her pride and confidence growing with each week and every new badge.