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Water on top of more water. Bubbles, light filtering like curtains into the deep sea. Everything is muffled in the depths he had been plunged into, and as his hand raises weakly to the crystalline sky, he wonders how deep he has fallen.
Drowning.
That's what this is, right? Gladion is drowning.
The sun is blurry and in the distance, and he wonders how much longer he has to remain there for everything to finally fade. The sunshine is dim above the rocky filter of the water, but he feels oddly warm regardless.
It will make this ordeal, drowning, more bearable. It's a rather pleasant feeling, floating down in silence, and the sunlight reminds him of the one person he had failed to reach before he had been pushed in.
He absent-mindedly wonders if she is okay. He is too weak to swim up but too stubborn to let his conscience go stray. Gladion is dimly aware of the binds around his wrists, which are loose enough for him to free himself. But the surface is so far away, glittering with the sun and bubbly as fishes roam about. He is weirdly relaxed, gently falling down to the bottom of this sea– river– lake? He can't remember anymore.
The water is warm enough to comfort him. He has never been that fond of water, beaches or ponds in general, but it seems like water will be his last companion after he had lost the battle against that evil team. Team… Galactic.
That's right. They had been battling in Lake Verity. Moon and him had been on a trip to Sinnoh (him for business reasons, her insisting on tagging along) and she had insisted on visiting the lake much to his chagrin.
The element he had very much disliked throughout his whole life would be his sole companion in his descent, and despite the clamor of his heart at the thought of Moon meeting his same fate, the silence and sunlight tranquilize him.
It's a very sobering thought. That he would die in another region, like this.
An orange fish wobbles to him and nips on the fabric of his black jacket. He looks pale against the stark waters, even more so considering his dark attire. His thoughts meander in his head, growing ghostly and foggy as he tries to reach out once more, clutching at the water, so far under this lake.
Linings of feeble sunlight trace his hands, cover the sun's cradle. His lips part, trying to take a breath instinctively and being met with the punishment of water rushing into his throat, into his lungs.
It feels like fire. Like frost. He barely registers that his eyes are beginning to close, that his body is missing the warmth, growing colder by the minute as the sun only grows more distant.
Things are so blurry he no longer knows which way is up and which is down.
'I never thought… I'd die like this.'
His eyes have been closed for a while now. He wonders for exactly how long as his thoughts become muddled and fuzzy.
And he has to accept this ordeal.
And he lets the water take him. 'What a weird thing… drowning…'
Moon has never taken the dive faster in her life, and she is overcome with the thought that she has never gone to a lake before, and this is the one time this has to happen. And it has to happen to him, who she doesn't even know if he knows how to swim.
She barely registers his shape in the weirdly clear waters, her eyes narrowed, but as soon as she sees a trace of platinum and black, Moon clutches to his hand desperately and swims up as fast as she can.
The Champion wheezes to breathe as her body heaves forward and his slumps on the shore. Team Galactic is long gone and they have learned their lesson– but as she stares at him with dazed exhaustion and blinking worry, Moon can't help but wonder is he is even breathing.
And as she pulls him further into the shore and away from the damned waters, she discovers, with an ear close to his lips and a trembling hand against his pulse, that he is not breathing.
"Gladion, I swear to Arceus," Moon calls him, shakes him, tries to make him open his eyes because he cannot die in her arms. It's not possible. "You better wake up."
In her stupor, Moon is not able to recall if he has a pulse or not– it's not like her spasms of worry will do anything in that department. She can only hear her own pulse in her head, heart beating too quickly, so she wills herself to calm down as he lowers herself gently.
"Goddammit, breathe." She can't help but swear as the shaky heel of her hand presses on his chest, trying to pump his heart into beating normally again, but she is still shaking nonetheless and the view of him grows blurry as something stings her eyes. "You- You need to breathe! You know how that works!"
And no answer comes from him, so she opts for harsher measures and breathes in sharply, covering his cold – too cold – lips with her own, pushing air into him as she accompanies it with bumps of her hand against his chest.
With each failed compression, Moon feels her heart fall through her stomach and shatter. Her wet cheeks grow salty with tears steadily falling in distress.
"You– I need you to be alive! What am I– am I supposed to do if you die here?" she hisses, voice shaky as she tries again, and again, and again, but nothing answers her wails. "C'mon, Gladion, please!"
Her cries fill the entirety of the forest. Moon is vaguely aware of the sun sinking, covering everything with a too lovely and unbecoming tint of orange. It showers his peaceful yet cold and pale features in a too beautiful light.
He cannot die. Not when he means so much to her, to Lillie, to Hau, to everyone. And he is not allowed to die in her watch where she would blame herself forever if it ended here.
Moon needs him so much more than she would ever admit to herself, and in the way she sobs his name as she tries again, it shows how much she can't take it. How desperate she is.
In her fifty-ninth compression and sob, she outspokenly gasps as he begins to cough violently.
Moon hurriedly leans him to his side and it's as if he has swallowed the entire damn lake because it can't be possible to have so much water in one's lungs. He is coughing out so much of it it's like that's all he can do.
In his weak state, she can't blame him, and as waves of continuous relief hit her body, Moon watches him with increasing disbelief and watery eyes.
So when he is done and slumps on the grass again, his breathing is extremely coarse, almost as if his throat is made of sand, and his eyes open again slowly, revealing faded green and reddened white.
In his exhausted daze, very aware of how Moon had just saved his life and he had almost thrown it out the window, he watches tears fall down her face and into his shirt, and as barely conscious as he is, guilt is all he feels as he croaks out her name.
"You are so dumb, I told you– I told you to let me handle it, that you have no Pokémon!" Moon wails, face shrinking in fake and altered bitterness, so pungent it reddens her face. "But you had to go on and be the impulsive jerk you are!"
Gladion weakly remembers what had happened, as it's all coming back in bits and pieces and this is no moment to stop and bask in the memory. But he had offered to give Team Galactic intel on Alola when they had threatened the region and Moon.
And he had ended up tied up. Ending their incursion into Lake Verity abruptly. Her screaming at the team to 'quit their business or else'. Them getting impatient and throwing him to the lake.
He breathes out heavily as Moon lowers her head to his chest, her forehead pressing against where his heart is. "Don't do that ever again! Not when we have so many things to do and we had a deal, remember? And you are not allowed to go die when there are still three years left until the deal ends, so stay alive or I'll throw you to Exeggutor Island and let you rot there!"
Whenever Moon would have so many feelings within her body, she would just unwind them in a whirlwind of unmeant anger and empty threats, and he knows how to handle them now. He might be more subtle about his rage, more quiet and cold, whereas Moon is blazing fire and hot tears of distress.
Gladion has no time to mutter an apology before she is cradling him to her chest and giving him a very intent look, analyzing him and pursing her lips as the hurricane dies down, the blaze fading and only empty relief remaining.
He stares back with lidded eyes, her lips hovering over his forehead as she lets them bask in tranquility, her arms warm around him. She has always been the warmth in the night, and even as the sun is setting and her skin is pale and her eyes are dark, she looks beautiful and like a star in his night.
Maybe that's why the sun had been so warm, even in the depths of the lake. Because that warmth reminded him of her.
"And Arceus, I didn't want our first kiss to be with you dying in my arms and choking like a Magikarp."
Gladion can't help but laugh – hoarsely, roughly, even if it pains him to do so – and silently agree with her.