Title: Pickpocket
Author: Shadow/Phantomness
Pairing: Championshipping (Lance x Red/Ash)
Fandom: Pokémon
Theme: #26, Pickpocket
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*

Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks

Warnings: Fanon, implied shonen-ai

No matter what they say, Lance Dragyn is not a nice person. Lance is very good at being blindingly charismatic, with pretty crimson hair and golden eyes, and the way he smiles makes all the girls swoon in ecstasy, but if you asked him, he would say that he really doesn’t care about them.

Lance wears skintight black and a red jacket, and uses pretty dragon pokemon that are powerful. Lance wears golden hairpins in his hair and silver bracelets on his wrists, but no one ever sees those. Lance is Champion, and he folds silversteel wings against his back in secret while he deals with the mess that fate has thrown at him.

Sometimes, Lance wishes that someone would steal it away, all the fame, all the power, all the glory, and most important of all, the duty. But when the chance comes, Lance looks into blood-red eyes and shakes his head, even as he feels Red slip, standing on the edge of destiny, because he can’t bring himself to do it.

He slips his hand over Red’s, and the new Champion blinks at him, startled.

“No.”

The Cards don’t move, and the Scales don’t tip, and Red…

Red doesn’t lose anything to fate.

Maybe it’s fair that way.

End Fic

Completed 2/22/07

Lance is a self-sacrificing idiot. Yes.