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Entry tags:
From Another's Hands (PG, Looker/Dawn) for everyone
Recipient: Everyone
Title: From Another's Hands
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kitsuneasika
Rating: PG
Verse: Games; Generation IV
Characters: Looker/Dawn
Summary: It wasn't like she'd had much experience with toppling evil organizations either, back when she was ten. While hunting down a crime ring, Looker and Dawn infiltrate a masquerade.
Notes: The original requester asked for a variety of pairings (from which I chose Looker/Dawn) with the following prompt: Hidden/secret identities (e.g. undercover as lovers, masquerade, anything you can think of!). I'd prefer the characters to not be in a relationship already. I tried my best to replicate how Looker speaks in the games, so hopefully it worked out. Also, I tried to make this clear in the fic itself, but just in case it isn't, this takes place some years after the actual game, so Dawn is an adult. Hopefully this is what you wanted! ♥
Dawn tugged at the skirt of her dress with a gloved hand. She could feel the weight of her pokéballs at her waist, but when she glanced into the mirror, they were nowhere to be seen. Self-conscious, she raised a hand to touch her face, the only part of her still recognizable. Her gaze then dropped to the Shinx mask lying on the dresser.
"You have too, let's say, recognizable of a face. Fortunately, our friends have solved that for us."
She picked up the mask, turning it over in her hands, and thought of her Luxray, safely hidden away in his pokéball. There were other pokémon out there, not so fortunate.
"Let's get moving, Dawn," she muttered to herself.
She raised the mask to her face, taking care to make sure she was putting it on properly and securely. When she was finished, she turned back to the mirror. Now, she didn't know the girl standing there at all.
When she stepped out of the room, it was to meet a stranger, dressed as finely as she, hidden away by another mask.
"Shall we go?" the Lucario mask asked in Looker's voice.
She stepped closer, and looked up to meet his eyes. She couldn't remember ever looking too closely at them before, but now they were the only familiar part of him, dark and reassuring.
"Yeah," she said, dropping her gaze. Her fingers brushed the folds of her dress where her pokéballs were hidden away, safe and secure. She smiled. "Let's go."
--
As they waited outside the doorway, the doorman examined their invitation. Faked, of course, by Looker, although Dawn didn't know how he had done. She stood by Looker's side, her arm in his and her gaze drawn to the building before them. It was large, larger than she expected, and beautiful. Light spilled out of the open doorway, the contrast with the night dulled by the street lights further down the street.
The doorman-- who was also wearing a mask, of a Sunflora of all things-- finally nodded, looking up at them. "Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Platinum," he said, stepping aside.
Dawn couldn't contain a small, sharp indrawn breath as they stepped inside. While as Champion, she had been to her fair share of formal events, she had never been anywhere quite this lavish. She felt glad for the mask, then, as it hid the opened-mouth awe that she was certain that the person she was pretending to be would not feel.
And I know how they are able to pay for this. The thought sobered her the instant it occurred to her. After that, somehow everything no longer seemed quite so grand.
"They will, I believe, expect us to mingle," Looker muttered low into her ear.
She nodded, mute. For a long moment, he looked at her.
"It would not be amiss, if I did most of the speaking, yes?" he asked.
She smiled despite herself. "That won't be necessary," she said, with a brief, reassuring squeeze of his arm. "I'll manage. I've dealt with worse people before." Granted, most of those people she had only needed to battle, not make nice with, but if it was for pokémon, she would manage.
It wasn't like she'd had much experience with toppling evil organizations either, back when she was ten.
--
They made their way around the room, making conversation. Looker's words came out easily, sounding aristocratic and cultured. There wasn't a trace of his usual speaking pattern; Dawn had nearly jumped at it when he first spoke.
He's good, she thought. No wonder he was a part of the International Police, when he could change who he was so easily.
Suddenly, she wondered if that-- his odd way of speaking she'd always thought was just one of his quirks-- was assumed as well. Although she had run into him at various points in the years that had passed since they first met, and had seen him in many disguises, this had not yet occurred to her before. The man she knew-- how much of him was real? Was the Looker she knew a disguise as well?
She didn't know, and that troubled her. I don't even know his real name, she realized, suddenly. She tightened her grip on his arm, looking sidelong up at him. All she could see was the shape of his mask.
She'd been calling him Looker for so long, that she had almost forgotten that he'd told her that it was only a codename when they had first met. I have known him for nearly ten years now, she thought, and I still don't know his name.
Once again, she was grateful for her own mask, so no one would see the slip in her composure.
She wasn't stupid. She knew exactly why the thought troubled her so much, and she wouldn't do herself the disservice of pretending otherwise.
She bit the inside of her cheek, and forced herself away from those distressing thoughts. There were other things to concern herself with, at the moment.
Such as the man in the Chatot mask she had spotted several times over the course of the evening. She'd seen him speaking to various guests, who would then disappear with him for some time before reappearing again-- at which point, she would spot the man speaking with another guest, and the cycle would repeat again.
Looker leaned over not long after she made her initial observations, after they had made a turn around the ballroom. "That man, with the mask of a Chatot, he is approaching us. You have seen him, yes?"
Dawn frowned. "I have," she confirmed, running her eyes over the room until she spotted what he had seen: the man in the Chatot mask, clearly making his way towards them. Unconsciously, she let her hand drift down to where her pokéballs were hidden. She couldn't use them, not yet, but it was a comfort to know that they were there.
Looker reached up to adjust his tie. She glanced over, looking for the recording device she knew was hidden there although she knew she wouldn't be able to.
Both prepared, she watched as the man with the Chatot mask approached. They were nearing the end, now. Soon, one way or another, she knew they would reach an end to this night.
--
Wide eyes, dark and frightened, stared back at them under the dim light of the basement. Pokémon, locked up in cages and frightened, but alive, alive and unhurt.
Dawn's legs trembled from the strength of her relief, and she clutched at Looker's arm to keep her balance. Her grip was so tight that it must have hurt, but he showed no signs of discomfort.
She paid no attention to what the man and Looker were saying, although she knew it was important. Certain phrases drifted to her ear, things like "custom-made products" and "customer satisfaction".
She let go of Looker's arm, her eyes only for the pokémon.
We'll save you, she thought, a fierce determination slowly replacing her relief. All of you. We'll get you out of here, I promise.
"There is one final thing," Looker said some time later, in that awful, unfamiliar voice. He stepped besides her, startling her out of her reverie.
She looked up at the vulpine curve of his mask.
He continued, clearly addressing his words to the man in the Chatot mask. "I would like... something special for my wife. A gift." He had scarcely finished speaking when he pulled her towards him, her back flush against his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. Under the anonymity of her mask, Dawn's cheeks burned.
He bent down, his mouth besides her ear. "It would be unfortunate if any of the guests left now, yes?" he murmured, in his own voice-- or, at least, the voice she was accustomed to thinking of as his. Something in her chest relaxed at the sound.
She understood his meaning immediately. Seeing those pokémon-- she wanted nothing more than to storm the place, all lightning and fire, but if she did-- the pokémon themselves might be rescued, but there was a chance that some of the people involved would escape, and begin their crimes anew.
She forced a giggle as she pulled herself out of his grasp, and actually managed to make it sound somewhat genuine. Her voice was bright when she spoke. "In that case, the two of you will have to excuse me. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would I?"
--
Surprisingly enough, everything went according to plan. Instead of returning to where all the other guests were, Dawn snuck outside, where her Luxray and Torterra worked together to make short work of the doormen before they could warn anyone. In any other circumstance, she would have felt bad about how utterly unmatched they were, but when she thought of the pokémon locked away beneath them, she couldn't quit manage the emotion.
She left them tied up with Torterra's vines, Luxray to watching over them to make sure that they didn't get away. By the time the rest of the police arrived, Torterra had just finished binding up the last of the exits with his vines.
The next few hours were a blur of activity. The kidnapped pokémon were all released into the care of the nearest Pokémon Center, arrests were made, and journalists came flocking on to the scene.
Eventually, however, things began to calm down, and Dawn found herself a quiet corner in the garden. Luxray laid down at her feet. She'd returned Torterra to his pokéball shortly after the police had arrived, as he hated crowds, but Luxray had wanted to remain out.
She leaned against a wall, looking up into the distance. Her Shinx mask, she still loosely clutched in her hands.
She hadn't seen Looker since she had left to lock the exits. While things were busy, it had been easy to distract herself from the lack of his presence, but now that things were calm--
She bit the inside of her cheek, and looked down at her Luxray. "What do you think?" she asked. "Should I go look for him?"
The look he gave her in response was profoundly unimpressed. Dawn sighed.
"Yeah, you're right," she said, pushing herself up to stand straight again.
Luxray bumped his head against her hand, making a low rumbling sound. She laughed, petting him a little. "Alright. But where would we find him?" She craned her head to get a better look at the building before her. "No, not in there... I didn't see him when we were getting the pokémon out. Besides, he'll probably end up being somewhere unexpected."
She leaned over, and looked in the direction of the street, where it led deeper into the city. "Maybe he went that way?" She glanced back at Luxray. "What do you think? Should we check it out?"
Instead of responding, Luxray got to his feet, and began walking in the direction she had looked. Dawn laughed. "I suppose there's my answer," she said with a shake of her head, and began to follow.
--
She found him sitting on a bench a few streets away. His Croagunk entertained itself with a nearby streetlamp, although Dawn couldn't see what it was that caught its attention. The sight gave her a moment's pause; she rarely saw his Croagunk out and about.
He was still wearing the Lucario mask.
Silent, she sat down beside him on the bench, her Shinx mask set on her lap. Luxray settled down on the ground beside her, laying his head on his paws and closing his eyes.
"Where to now?" Dawn asked, her voice soft, once a few minutes of silence had passed them by.
"That... is something of which I am not sure," Looker answered after a moment's pause. "Wherever the International Police need me, if I am needed. If I am not, then it does not matter where it is I go."
Dawn looked at him for a long moment. "Could you take off that mask?"
Another pause, and then he raised his hands, carefully removing it. It took her a moment to place his expression, as it seemed so unfamiliar on his face. While Looker had never reached Barry's levels of energy, he had always seemed so alive. Now, though, tiredness seemed etched in his bones, and it felt wrong.
And then he looked at her, and all other thoughts flew away, because she knew that look, had seen it before, although not on him.
She took the mask from his hands, and he offered no resistance as she set it on the bench besides her. "Once," she said, "You told me a quote, about sorrowful partings. You said that you finally understood it, when you were leaving me, and I knew what you meant, because I felt the same."
He looked at her, head tilted in an invitation to continue.
She swallowed, her heart thudding violently in her chest. "I-- I still do. Understand what you meant, that is." She shifted, and raised her eyes to meet his. "But... I think I understand for a different reason, now. And... I think you might, too. I hope you do."
He didn't answer, not straight away. She trembled, half-sick with anticipation.
"You're young," he said, finally.
She wanted to half-laugh, half-sob at the cliché.
"Maybe," she answered instead, with her best attempt at steadiness. Her voice still shook, a little. "But it's not like I'm ten, either. I'm old enough to decide for myself what I want." Her mouth curved into a little half-smile. "Besides, I think I've seen more, done more than most people have in their entire lifetimes. I don't think that my age matters too much at this point."
Looker closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. She fell silent, waiting for him to make his decision.
His eyes opened, and he looked at her again, for another long moment. Then, without another word, he leaned in and kissed her.
Dawn laughed, a little breathless, half-relief and half-joy. She let her Shinx mask fall to the ground before wrapping her arms around his neck and returning the kiss.
Title: From Another's Hands
Author:
kitsuneasika Rating: PG
Verse: Games; Generation IV
Characters: Looker/Dawn
Summary: It wasn't like she'd had much experience with toppling evil organizations either, back when she was ten. While hunting down a crime ring, Looker and Dawn infiltrate a masquerade.
Notes: The original requester asked for a variety of pairings (from which I chose Looker/Dawn) with the following prompt: Hidden/secret identities (e.g. undercover as lovers, masquerade, anything you can think of!). I'd prefer the characters to not be in a relationship already. I tried my best to replicate how Looker speaks in the games, so hopefully it worked out. Also, I tried to make this clear in the fic itself, but just in case it isn't, this takes place some years after the actual game, so Dawn is an adult. Hopefully this is what you wanted! ♥
Dawn tugged at the skirt of her dress with a gloved hand. She could feel the weight of her pokéballs at her waist, but when she glanced into the mirror, they were nowhere to be seen. Self-conscious, she raised a hand to touch her face, the only part of her still recognizable. Her gaze then dropped to the Shinx mask lying on the dresser.
"You have too, let's say, recognizable of a face. Fortunately, our friends have solved that for us."
She picked up the mask, turning it over in her hands, and thought of her Luxray, safely hidden away in his pokéball. There were other pokémon out there, not so fortunate.
"Let's get moving, Dawn," she muttered to herself.
She raised the mask to her face, taking care to make sure she was putting it on properly and securely. When she was finished, she turned back to the mirror. Now, she didn't know the girl standing there at all.
When she stepped out of the room, it was to meet a stranger, dressed as finely as she, hidden away by another mask.
"Shall we go?" the Lucario mask asked in Looker's voice.
She stepped closer, and looked up to meet his eyes. She couldn't remember ever looking too closely at them before, but now they were the only familiar part of him, dark and reassuring.
"Yeah," she said, dropping her gaze. Her fingers brushed the folds of her dress where her pokéballs were hidden away, safe and secure. She smiled. "Let's go."
As they waited outside the doorway, the doorman examined their invitation. Faked, of course, by Looker, although Dawn didn't know how he had done. She stood by Looker's side, her arm in his and her gaze drawn to the building before them. It was large, larger than she expected, and beautiful. Light spilled out of the open doorway, the contrast with the night dulled by the street lights further down the street.
The doorman-- who was also wearing a mask, of a Sunflora of all things-- finally nodded, looking up at them. "Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Platinum," he said, stepping aside.
Dawn couldn't contain a small, sharp indrawn breath as they stepped inside. While as Champion, she had been to her fair share of formal events, she had never been anywhere quite this lavish. She felt glad for the mask, then, as it hid the opened-mouth awe that she was certain that the person she was pretending to be would not feel.
And I know how they are able to pay for this. The thought sobered her the instant it occurred to her. After that, somehow everything no longer seemed quite so grand.
"They will, I believe, expect us to mingle," Looker muttered low into her ear.
She nodded, mute. For a long moment, he looked at her.
"It would not be amiss, if I did most of the speaking, yes?" he asked.
She smiled despite herself. "That won't be necessary," she said, with a brief, reassuring squeeze of his arm. "I'll manage. I've dealt with worse people before." Granted, most of those people she had only needed to battle, not make nice with, but if it was for pokémon, she would manage.
It wasn't like she'd had much experience with toppling evil organizations either, back when she was ten.
They made their way around the room, making conversation. Looker's words came out easily, sounding aristocratic and cultured. There wasn't a trace of his usual speaking pattern; Dawn had nearly jumped at it when he first spoke.
He's good, she thought. No wonder he was a part of the International Police, when he could change who he was so easily.
Suddenly, she wondered if that-- his odd way of speaking she'd always thought was just one of his quirks-- was assumed as well. Although she had run into him at various points in the years that had passed since they first met, and had seen him in many disguises, this had not yet occurred to her before. The man she knew-- how much of him was real? Was the Looker she knew a disguise as well?
She didn't know, and that troubled her. I don't even know his real name, she realized, suddenly. She tightened her grip on his arm, looking sidelong up at him. All she could see was the shape of his mask.
She'd been calling him Looker for so long, that she had almost forgotten that he'd told her that it was only a codename when they had first met. I have known him for nearly ten years now, she thought, and I still don't know his name.
Once again, she was grateful for her own mask, so no one would see the slip in her composure.
She wasn't stupid. She knew exactly why the thought troubled her so much, and she wouldn't do herself the disservice of pretending otherwise.
She bit the inside of her cheek, and forced herself away from those distressing thoughts. There were other things to concern herself with, at the moment.
Such as the man in the Chatot mask she had spotted several times over the course of the evening. She'd seen him speaking to various guests, who would then disappear with him for some time before reappearing again-- at which point, she would spot the man speaking with another guest, and the cycle would repeat again.
Looker leaned over not long after she made her initial observations, after they had made a turn around the ballroom. "That man, with the mask of a Chatot, he is approaching us. You have seen him, yes?"
Dawn frowned. "I have," she confirmed, running her eyes over the room until she spotted what he had seen: the man in the Chatot mask, clearly making his way towards them. Unconsciously, she let her hand drift down to where her pokéballs were hidden. She couldn't use them, not yet, but it was a comfort to know that they were there.
Looker reached up to adjust his tie. She glanced over, looking for the recording device she knew was hidden there although she knew she wouldn't be able to.
Both prepared, she watched as the man with the Chatot mask approached. They were nearing the end, now. Soon, one way or another, she knew they would reach an end to this night.
Wide eyes, dark and frightened, stared back at them under the dim light of the basement. Pokémon, locked up in cages and frightened, but alive, alive and unhurt.
Dawn's legs trembled from the strength of her relief, and she clutched at Looker's arm to keep her balance. Her grip was so tight that it must have hurt, but he showed no signs of discomfort.
She paid no attention to what the man and Looker were saying, although she knew it was important. Certain phrases drifted to her ear, things like "custom-made products" and "customer satisfaction".
She let go of Looker's arm, her eyes only for the pokémon.
We'll save you, she thought, a fierce determination slowly replacing her relief. All of you. We'll get you out of here, I promise.
"There is one final thing," Looker said some time later, in that awful, unfamiliar voice. He stepped besides her, startling her out of her reverie.
She looked up at the vulpine curve of his mask.
He continued, clearly addressing his words to the man in the Chatot mask. "I would like... something special for my wife. A gift." He had scarcely finished speaking when he pulled her towards him, her back flush against his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. Under the anonymity of her mask, Dawn's cheeks burned.
He bent down, his mouth besides her ear. "It would be unfortunate if any of the guests left now, yes?" he murmured, in his own voice-- or, at least, the voice she was accustomed to thinking of as his. Something in her chest relaxed at the sound.
She understood his meaning immediately. Seeing those pokémon-- she wanted nothing more than to storm the place, all lightning and fire, but if she did-- the pokémon themselves might be rescued, but there was a chance that some of the people involved would escape, and begin their crimes anew.
She forced a giggle as she pulled herself out of his grasp, and actually managed to make it sound somewhat genuine. Her voice was bright when she spoke. "In that case, the two of you will have to excuse me. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise, would I?"
Surprisingly enough, everything went according to plan. Instead of returning to where all the other guests were, Dawn snuck outside, where her Luxray and Torterra worked together to make short work of the doormen before they could warn anyone. In any other circumstance, she would have felt bad about how utterly unmatched they were, but when she thought of the pokémon locked away beneath them, she couldn't quit manage the emotion.
She left them tied up with Torterra's vines, Luxray to watching over them to make sure that they didn't get away. By the time the rest of the police arrived, Torterra had just finished binding up the last of the exits with his vines.
The next few hours were a blur of activity. The kidnapped pokémon were all released into the care of the nearest Pokémon Center, arrests were made, and journalists came flocking on to the scene.
Eventually, however, things began to calm down, and Dawn found herself a quiet corner in the garden. Luxray laid down at her feet. She'd returned Torterra to his pokéball shortly after the police had arrived, as he hated crowds, but Luxray had wanted to remain out.
She leaned against a wall, looking up into the distance. Her Shinx mask, she still loosely clutched in her hands.
She hadn't seen Looker since she had left to lock the exits. While things were busy, it had been easy to distract herself from the lack of his presence, but now that things were calm--
She bit the inside of her cheek, and looked down at her Luxray. "What do you think?" she asked. "Should I go look for him?"
The look he gave her in response was profoundly unimpressed. Dawn sighed.
"Yeah, you're right," she said, pushing herself up to stand straight again.
Luxray bumped his head against her hand, making a low rumbling sound. She laughed, petting him a little. "Alright. But where would we find him?" She craned her head to get a better look at the building before her. "No, not in there... I didn't see him when we were getting the pokémon out. Besides, he'll probably end up being somewhere unexpected."
She leaned over, and looked in the direction of the street, where it led deeper into the city. "Maybe he went that way?" She glanced back at Luxray. "What do you think? Should we check it out?"
Instead of responding, Luxray got to his feet, and began walking in the direction she had looked. Dawn laughed. "I suppose there's my answer," she said with a shake of her head, and began to follow.
She found him sitting on a bench a few streets away. His Croagunk entertained itself with a nearby streetlamp, although Dawn couldn't see what it was that caught its attention. The sight gave her a moment's pause; she rarely saw his Croagunk out and about.
He was still wearing the Lucario mask.
Silent, she sat down beside him on the bench, her Shinx mask set on her lap. Luxray settled down on the ground beside her, laying his head on his paws and closing his eyes.
"Where to now?" Dawn asked, her voice soft, once a few minutes of silence had passed them by.
"That... is something of which I am not sure," Looker answered after a moment's pause. "Wherever the International Police need me, if I am needed. If I am not, then it does not matter where it is I go."
Dawn looked at him for a long moment. "Could you take off that mask?"
Another pause, and then he raised his hands, carefully removing it. It took her a moment to place his expression, as it seemed so unfamiliar on his face. While Looker had never reached Barry's levels of energy, he had always seemed so alive. Now, though, tiredness seemed etched in his bones, and it felt wrong.
And then he looked at her, and all other thoughts flew away, because she knew that look, had seen it before, although not on him.
She took the mask from his hands, and he offered no resistance as she set it on the bench besides her. "Once," she said, "You told me a quote, about sorrowful partings. You said that you finally understood it, when you were leaving me, and I knew what you meant, because I felt the same."
He looked at her, head tilted in an invitation to continue.
She swallowed, her heart thudding violently in her chest. "I-- I still do. Understand what you meant, that is." She shifted, and raised her eyes to meet his. "But... I think I understand for a different reason, now. And... I think you might, too. I hope you do."
He didn't answer, not straight away. She trembled, half-sick with anticipation.
"You're young," he said, finally.
She wanted to half-laugh, half-sob at the cliché.
"Maybe," she answered instead, with her best attempt at steadiness. Her voice still shook, a little. "But it's not like I'm ten, either. I'm old enough to decide for myself what I want." Her mouth curved into a little half-smile. "Besides, I think I've seen more, done more than most people have in their entire lifetimes. I don't think that my age matters too much at this point."
Looker closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. She fell silent, waiting for him to make his decision.
His eyes opened, and he looked at her again, for another long moment. Then, without another word, he leaned in and kissed her.
Dawn laughed, a little breathless, half-relief and half-joy. She let her Shinx mask fall to the ground before wrapping her arms around his neck and returning the kiss.
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