Work Text:
Valentine’s Day dinner
It’s nearly noon when Raihan wakes up. It takes him a moment to realize the heavy, warm weight pinning him down on the bed is Kabu’s Arcanine. It takes him a few more moments to remember why Kabu isn’t here with him. They had all the plans to spend Valentine’s day together, after all.
But Milo had called early in the morning, needing Kabu’s help with something or other that probably had to do with Valentine’s day and Nessa. And Kabu of course had left for Turffield to help Milo.
Raihan was still mostly asleep, so all he remembers is Kabu getting up, giving him a gentle kiss and promising he’ll be back later and then they’ll spend the rest of the day together.
Raihan decides to get up and get ready for when Kabu comes back. As he wanders over to the living room and kitchen, a quick look reveals he took Ninetales and the Sizzlipede with him. Arcanine has also gotten up and is following him around the house, while Centiskorch is curled up under the couch and hisses at Raihan if he gets too close.
Out of all of Kabu’s Pokémon, Arcanine and Ninetales are the ones he gets best along with, easily. Torkoal is mostly neutral, but really likes playing with Raihan’s Torkoal.
Centiskorch and the Sizzlipede just hate him. Kabu says they’re just jealous, and that they’ll get over it with time. Raihan really hopes he’s right. So for now, he just settles for leaving them be, hoping they’ll come around eventually, like Kabu says.
Raihan’s own Pokémon love spending time in Kabu’s back yard, just playing and relaxing, since they can’t do that at Raihan’s apartment. In fact, they’re all out there right now.
There’s a note on the kitchen table from Kabu that lets him know all the Pokémon have been fed.
He makes himself some breakfast and lazily scrolls through social media on his Rotom phone while eating. Mostly Valentine’s Day stuff, hearts, couples posing together, something about new Pokémon being allowed in Galar – he’ll have to read that one later.
He takes a quick selfie, making a heart with his hands, that he posts on his feed, wishing everyone a nice Valentine’s day.
Looking at everything people have posted really makes him want to do something like that for Kabu. Which makes him wonder what Kabu might like. Chocolates? Flowers? A nice, fancy dinner? Scrolling a bit more, he’s starting to get some ideas.
A nice, homecooked dinner, dessert, and flowers. Add in some seduction, and the evening will be perfect! Luckily, Kabu keeps his kitchen well stocked, so he just needs to get out to get the flowers. He considers getting chocolates as well but remembers how Arcanine likes to steal things like that for snacks, he decides against it.
After breakfast, he quickly gets dressed and heads out. He’s left surprisingly alone, partially because he isn’t quite as recognizable on sight in Motostoke as he is in Hammerlocke, and partially because all people who are out right now are with their date and paying no attention to their surroundings.
It doesn’t take him long to find a flower shop, and within a few minutes he’s got his flowers and is on his way back to Kabu’s home. He’s feeling so good right now, he’s practically skipping down the road.
Once he arrives back at Kabu’s place, he’s immediately greeted by a bunch of happy Pokémon. It takes him a few moments to greet and pet all of them, while being careful so the flowers don’t get crushed. He makes his way to the living room and puts the flowers on the table in front of the couch, thinking he’ll be able to quickly grab them and present them to Kabu once he arrives. Now, for dinner.
He takes his time looking through recipes online, until he finds something that looks simple, yet romantic. Something even he, with his limited cooking skills, should be able to make. He checks the kitchen to make sure he has everything he needs (it does) and starts to prepare for cooking.
Ok, start by turning on the stove and put in some cooking oil and the meat. Raihan goes through everything on the recipe very carefully so he doesn’t mess up anything. Keep on a low heat for fifteen to twenty minutes to let it cook. Stove on, done. Cooking oil in pot, done. Meat in pot, done. He pokes it a little with a wooden spoon before leaving it alone. Moving on to the next part.
Maybe this cooking thing isn’t so difficult after all, Raihan thinks, feeling rather good about this whole thing. I should become a chef or something if I ever retire from being a gym leader.
Next he has to chop up the vegetables and berries. He picks out what he needs from the fridge, sits down at the table and gets to it. Tomatoes, paprika, zucchini, pecha berries, and a few cheri berries. He’s trying to take into consideration Kabu’s love for spicy food and his own intolerance for too spicy food.
A sudden crunching sound from the direction of the couch draws his attention. When he looks over, he notices the flowers are gone from the table and currently disappearing into Centiskorch’s mouth. He gets up and approaches it, feeling rather upset.
“C’mon!” He half-yells at it, exasperated. “You know those weren’t for you!” All he gets in answer is an angry hiss and a glare as the Pokémon crawls back in under the couch, where it makes itself comfortable and keeps glaring at him with its yellow and red eyes.
“Fine, whatever!” It’s not like he can do anything about it now. He’ll just have to manage without the flowers. He just wishes the Centiskorch didn’t hate him so much. Maybe one day they’ll be able to get along.
As if sensing his mood, Arcanine nudges him with its fluffy head and licks his hand, trying to cheer him up. He smiles slightly and scratches the canine around the ears. “At least you like me,” he comments, getting a satisfied “Woof,” in return.
Well, back to the food, he thinks, heading back to the table where he’s cutting up the ingredients.
Arcanine is sitting next to him when he works, following his every move with hungry eyes. Occasionally, he gives in and feeds it a berry or two. At least Kabu has taught it to not steal food from the table. The Centiskorch is just glaring at him from under the couch and both their Torkoal are napping in the back yard, happy and content in the sun. Flygon and Sandaconda are playing with some toy or other, being careful not to disturb the Torkoal. Duraludon is just soaking in the sunlight.
It’s all very nice, peaceful and homey. Makes him wonder if this is what things would be like if he and Kabu actually were living together. He lets himself fall into a lovely daydream where they indeed live together, the Pokémon are playing in the backyard and he and Kabu are having a nice dinner and cuddling on the couch after a long day...
He is suddenly interrupted by Arcanine loudly barking at something. When he turns to see what it’s barking at, he sees the pot is on fire! Like, there are actual flames and smoke coming from the pot!
“What the hell!” He jumps up, trying not to panic. What to do, what to do?! Turn of the stove, pot out the fire, toss the pot out before something else catches fire?! “Nonononono!!!” This was supposed to be a nice dinner for Valentine’s Day!
“Where is the lid!” He searches franticly for the lid to the pot, because where the hell did I put the thing?! After a few seconds of searching, which somehow feel like several minutes, he finally finds the lid. When he goes to put the lid on the pot, he notices the wooden spoon is still in the pot! So he grabs the spoon, which is on fire, and waves it around in a panic to put out the fire.
Once that is done, he quickly slams the lid on the pot, which puts out the fire. Then he turns of the stove and puts the pot in the sink. Well, he thinks numbly, at least nothing is on fire anymore.
Nothing is on fire anymore, no. But dinner is burned to a lump of black sludge and the house is filled with smoke and smells like it, too. Amazingly enough, the fire alarm hasn’t made a single beep the entire time. Then again, it’s probably not a very sensitive alarm, considering all the fire-type Pokémon the man has in his house. It would probably e going off all the time if that was the case.
“What do I do now?” Raihan asks no one in particular, staring at what was supposed to be a nice, lovely dinner. Arcanine makes a whining noise, pads over to sniff at the pot, sneezes and quickly jumps back, growling at the thing. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad, huh?” Raihan agrees, scratching it behind the ears.
After a few moments of mourning the dinner, he really can’t stand the smoke and smell anymore, so he opens all the windows and the door to the back yard, hoping to air out the house a little bit at least. He then collapses on the couch, careful no to disturb the Centiskorch underneath.
“What do I do now?” he repeats to himself. He looks over to the table where the chopped-up ingredients are still sitting all pretty. “Maybe I can still do something with those,” he muses. Maybe they’ll just have something vegetarian today? His attention is then drawn to the fridge. “We still have the dessert, at least,” he tries to look on the bright side.
He’s starting to think what he could do with those chopped up ingredients, that doesn’t involve burning them. Or using the stove at all, for that matter. He just might never use the stove again. So much for being a great chef, eh?
That’s when Kabu comes home. Raihan hears the front door open, sees Arcanine rush of to greet the man, claws scratching up the floor. He hears Kabu greet the excited canine, and next thing he knows, Ninetales and Arcanine are rushing through the house, racing each other to the backyard where they continue playing with the other Pokémon. Right after, Kabu is calling out to Raihan, asking if he’s home, and how he’s been doing.
Of course, he’s so happy Kabu is back, he jumps up from the couch and rushes over to greet the older man, at least as excitedly as Arcanine did. He must look like an overexcited puppy. He rushes happily over to Kabu and scoops him into a tight hug, wanting to never let go, nuzzling into his soft, grey hair just because he can. The older man smells like fresh air and sweat, which he normally wouldn’t really care for, but is somehow very attractive on Kabu.
After a few seconds, Kabu squirms free from his grip and instead grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him down for a kiss. Raihan immediately melts into the kiss, sneaking one arm around the older man’s waist and the buries the other in his hair.
It’s amazing how affectionate Kabu is in private. Such a contrast to how reserved he is when they’re in public, where it’s usually Raihan who initiates anything. Not that I mind, Raihan thinks. He’s glad to have this side of Kabu all to himself.
After a few moments, too soon in Raihan’s opinion, they have to separate in order to breathe. His cheek is now resting against Kabu’s hair and Kabu’s forehead against his shoulder, as they just stand there holding each other for a while.
After a bit, Kabu pulls away slightly, but within hugging range so Raihan’s arms stay around him.
“Raihan...” he says cautiously, looking around the house. “Why is there smoke everywhere and what smells burnt?” Oh, Raihan has almost forgotten about that, he was so happy to see Kabu again.
“Well... I...” Raihan tries to come up with something, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment over not being able to make a simple dinner without messing something up. He decides to go with the truth, not trying to make it sound better that it is. Because it really is just a mess. “I tried to make us a nice dinner, but it didn’t go so well,” he admits, not meeting Kabu’s eyes.
“Raihan...” Kabu starts, like he can’t really believe what he just heard. Raihan doesn’t really know what he thinks, since he can’t see his face. So he continues babbling, not really sure what he’s hoping will happen.
“Don’t worry, nothing’s on fire anymore!” Probably not the best thing to admit, but... “And there’s some vegetables that didn’t burn, and there’s dessert, so it’ll probably be fine, and...” it takes him a moment to notice Kabu is quietly laughing. “What’s funny?”
Instead of answering immediately, Kabu takes a moment to calm down and stop laughing. He has a really nice laugh, though, Raihan finds himself thinking. Pity he doesn’t hear it much.
Then, with a gentle, yet happy smile, Kabu reaches up and cups Raihan’s face, stroking his cheekbones with his thumbs. He then pulls Raihan into a short kiss.
“Thank you, Raihan.” Kabu tells him finally. “It was very sweet of you to want to make dinner.”
“Your last boyfriend didn’t spoil you on Valentine’s day, huh?” Raihan isn’t sure if this is something he should be asking, but he is a bit curious.
“No,” Kabu answers, with a small, nostalgic smile. “He wasn’t much of a romantic.”
“His loss,” Raihan says. Knowing Kabu’s last partner wasn’t very romantic makes him want to spoil the man even more. If some other guy couldn’t appreciate Kabu, then Raihan sure will!
“Hmm,” is all Kabu says. It seems he doesn’t really want to talk something bad about his ex, or hear someone talk bad about him, so it’s probably better to just move on.
“Well, it didn’t work out so well, anyway,” Raihan says. “I was going to give you flowers, cook you a nice dinner, then dessert and then I was going to seduce you to bed,” he admits. “But Centiskorch ate the flowers and I burnt dinner and all I have left is the dessert.”
It sounds kind of pathetic when he puts it like that, but Kabu doesn’t seem to agree, since he’s still smiling at him. He seems incredibly amused by this whole thing.
“What kind of dessert?”
“Um... Chocolate mousse and strawberries.” He knows it’s nothing fancy and didn’t require any cooking or anything. Probably the only reason it’s edible…
“Sounds good,” Kabu tells him. “How about we change your plans a bit and still have a nice Valentine’s day?”
“Did you have something in mind?” Raihan asks, looking Kabu up and down appreciatingly.
“Well, first I need a shower,” Kabu says, picking at his sweat-soaked shirt. “Alone,” he adds when he notices how Raihan looks at him, ignoring the disappointed “Awww...” coming from him.
“Then, you can help me make dinner. Then we eat and have that dessert.” At this point he gives Raihan a seductive look and continues with “And then you can seduce me to bed.” While talking, he’s stepping away from Raihan and unbuttoning his shirt, exposing that pale neck and throat. And he’s still giving Raihan that look, and-
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one doing the seducing right now,” Raihan tells him, already licking his lips in anticipation. Kabu better get into that shower soon, or Raihan will just take him straight to bed...
“Maybe I am,” Kabu admits. “You don’t seem to mind, though.”
“I definitely don’t mind,” Raihan says, staring hungrily at the man and not bothering to hide it even a little. “But you’ll have to move on, unless you want to skip eating and go straight to bed.”
“No,” Kabu pushes at him, but that smile tells Raihan he’s not upset or anything. “Dinner first, Raihan. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Breakfast for Kabu must have been just before he left, which was - Raihan looks over at the clock – just over ten hours ago. He must be really hungry.
“How would you like dessert in bed?” Raihan has to ask, hoping for the best.
“Normally I don’t,” Kabu admits, then gives Raihan another kiss. “But I can make an exception.”
“Sounds great!” Raihan cheers, then pulls Kabu further into the house. “Now go get your shower so we can move on, yeah?” Kabu laughs again but moves on to the bathroom.
Later, they look the Pokémon out of the bedroom for the rest of that day.
A/N: Raihan’s kitchen mishaps are based on real life events. I’ve never managed to actually put something on fire in the kitchen, so it sure was an experience. 0/10. Do not recommend.