Work Text:
we pinned our hopes to the leaves
They don't consider it the future, not just yet.
It's just the present, a present that stands like stone, cold and untouchable and empty of life, but still theirs. It's the only thing they have ever had beside each other.
In the beginning they think of nothing but staying together and trying to survive, spending long nights under lights that are a pale imitation of those that once hung in the sky. Their days are spent researching, scouring old books and gathering legends from the mouths of those who no longer believe in them.
The sky is gray no matter what, illuminated by a pale weak light. What grows once never grows again, what flowed once has frozen like sheets of blue glass. Grovyle falls once into a river and expects it to feel solid. When it pulls him under the weight of it shocks him almost as hard as the sudden sight of his partner underneath the water.
They're both coughing when they come up and the fear makes his heart beat double time. They hug him tight before he can scold them and the words turn gentle even as he grumbles about their recklessness, continuing even as they start a fire and try to get dry. Humans are strong in many ways, his own partner one of them. But they are not so strong that the cold won't kill them.
The fire burns throughout the night and its quiet crackling is a comfortable sound. The warmth that has built around them feels like the beginnings of something familiar, like the soft weight of trust has settled down safely, like the threads of fate have decided whether they will be bound together or not.
As time passes the warmth blazes forward into a bonfire that scorches their souls and leaves its mark, the weight of their trust a cloak wrapped around them, the threads a rope that leads them to each other. When the Dimensional Scream comes for the first time and leaves them reeling over possibilities they blink incredulous eyes and try to think, hope bubbling up like a newfound spring.
They start thinking about tomorrow, about a world that is crumbling faster and faster. They think about a future they will never see either way, a past that is surely unspoiled, the world's ticket to a new beginning at a cost only they can pay. And they decide.
For the weeks before they go to find Celebi, they spend on their own, searching for triggers. They find all of them, slogging through deserts and forests and everything in between. It's quiet work, long and difficult enough that it makes it hard to think of anything but the next hidden piece. They're finished far too soon and the jarring thought that follows their success is that there is nothing left to do but prepare.
So they stop for a moment.
They spend a day in the quietest town, the one with the old library and the cafe that is never more than half full, tucked away in the shadows. They spend money on supplies but also small, frivolous things. Trinkets, ribbons, a whole box of luminous orbs. Soft scarves, a new bag for Grovyle, some storybooks.
They spend another day doing nothing but decorating the small set of rooms they finished paying for ages ago but never truly moved into, too busy chasing leads and hopes that tasted of ashes and loss. They sweep and sing, fall into old habits and laughing arguments that are as worn and comfortable as their sweaters. They make hot drinks and let the moments slide past until it feels like night and then they slip out, leaving the home they will never be able to live in. The lights are soft and golden, luminous orbs just barely activated and strung together all across the windows.
It looks nice.
There is a sting in both of their chests, a burning in their eyes for the wishes they are leaving behind. They pull it into some semblance of strength, polish it until it shines out of them.
They go to find Celebi.
She is already ready, buoyed by the wisdom of ages built from stolen seconds, full of glowing energy and faith that they can succeed. She pulls time into tangibility and sends them forward. They are ready for it, ready to coax the world back into living, to sacrifice the future for the present. They are ready and they are together and time opens up underneath their fingers and pulls them through.
And then it pulls them under.
And then it pulls them apart.
(and they fell)
The memory of drowning lingers.
It is the only one that does.
The sound of crashing waves is more a lullaby than a wake up call and the rising panic in their chest is crushed underneath the fatigue. They can't keep their eyes open although they struggle to stay awake, not knowing why they feel like something has been torn from them, unable to find an explanation for the depth of emotion in their chest that threatens rise and drown them. It almost comes as a relief when the exhaustion takes them under.
(They won't remember this.)
They wake up on the beach, sand as far as the eye can see, golden and warm under the sunlight. There are bubbles in the air and they turn their head to follow their flight into the sky, colors shifting and turning. The sunset catches their eyes then and the breath stops in their lungs. They don't blink once while watching, don't dare to move for even a second, afraid they'll miss it, afraid the sight will fizzle away into nothing.
(Far away someone watches the sun rise for the first time in his life and wishes they could see it.)