Let The Grass Grow (Leon x OC)

Chapter 5 - Everything

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sort of stranger - the greeting committee, briston maroney

faking my death - allison ponthier

desperado - samira

i will follow you into the dark - mipso

tender (stripped) feat. yoke lore - jax anderson, yoke lore

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On Leon's insistence that it would not be awkward unless they made it awkward, the trio exited the backroom in a bleary-eyed and hungover procession.

Sonia was out first, which was expected by Hop. But the boy's countenance went through a journey as the other two adults followed: surprise to confusion back to surprise again.

"Lee?" He asked, followed by an even louder and more astounded: "Quinn?"

"Hey, kid," Quinn said with a slight wave.

After the initial astonishment lost its luster, one of his dark brows began to rise. "What's going on here?"

"Research," Sonia blurted.

It took everything within Quinn to not dissolve into laughter. She smoothed over her expression and said: "Official laboratory business. Nothing to concern yourself with."

"Um," Hop blinked honey eyes, "Okay."

She couldn't believe how much he looked like Leon. The two brothers had always looked similar, ever since they were young. In fact, the entire family shared the same three defining physical traits: amber eyes, a chestnut complexion, and purple hair. They were like nesting dolls, each generation the same as the last. But the last time Quinn had seen Hop he had been very much a boy: gangly and awkward and hotheaded. He was still a boy now, but it was evident he was fast becoming a young man.

He was thin, though he'd grown into his long limbs. The baby fat in his face was weaning away, revealing a more chiseled jaw that was wholly reminiscent of his older brother's. He still had those obscenely long eyelashes, just like Leon. The kind that were dark and luscious and wholly undeserved, or at least Quinn thought so, whose own brows and lashes were blonde and disappeared on her face if she didn't coat them in heavy makeup.

"You're looking just like your brother these days, Hop," Quinn told him. "So handsome."

She knew this was just the thing to distract the younger boy. He idolized his brother and — just like Leon — was weak to compliments.

Hop blushed, scratching the back of his head. "You think? Thanks, Q."

"Alright, enough of that now," Sonia said, clapping her hands together. "We have a lot of work to do."

While Hop and Sonia busied themselves with actual laboratory business, Leon and Quinn set up shop at the large table. Sonia had given them an extra map of Galar she'd found among a stack of papers and they began charting their upcoming expedition.

Michi and Sonia's Yamper were munching on a bowl of dry PokéFood. The two Pokémon had taken to one another, a surprise to be sure. Michi didn't like people or other Pokémon very much. It hardly liked Quinn when they first met. She'd been forced to handle the grass type with oven mitts for the first week of their relationship just to avoid being bitten.

Sonia didn't have much to offer in way of human breakfast except tea (no whisky this time around) and some old biscuits she found in the cupboard. Quinn dunked a stale biscuit into her tea and nibbled on it contemplatively as Leon explained his vision.