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“Are you sure about this?”
The crash of waves against the sand nearly drowned your quiet voice out. Brendan didn’t look back at you, but he nodded anyway. “C’mon, you’re the Champion—” he paused to toss a grin over his shoulder, “it’s not like we can’t take care of ourselves.”
A sigh and a laugh bubbled up out of your mouth, and Brendan’s grin got brighter in the dark when he dragged a reaction out of you. “About time you stopped worrying. You need a break.”
Lilycove’s beaches were popular, and during the day, crowded with swimmers and Pokémon alike. But now, long after the rest of the city had fallen asleep, you and Brendan had the vast stretch of white sands entirely to yourselves.
The ocean was a darker blue than you’d ever seen before, one so deep and endless that you couldn’t tell where it ended and the sky began. Overhead, the stars glistened brightly, as if trying to outshine the moon hanging like a spotlight above the water, lining the seafoam with silver and filling the air with a dreamy haze. You weren’t sure how long you’d been walking, too caught up in the feeling of the sand sinking with every step you took, the cold sea dampening the hems of your pants as you wandered after your friend.
Brendan eventually came to a halt where the water met the sand. The waves washed up the shore, foam bubbling around his ankles as the tide raced ever forward and backward. He shifted back and forth on his feet, nervous energy tinging the air around him as he peeked at you from the corner of his eye. He clearly wanted to say something.
You broke the ice first.
“So,” you hummed, “why are we out here, exactly? I’ve been to Lilycove before.” The memories of your battles with Aqua and Magma were still fresh in your mind, despite the time that had passed.
At that, though, Brendan was able to flash another grin at you, his gray eyes catching the moonbeams. “I was out here completing my dex for dad,” he started, “and I saw the coolest thing! And I—” at this part, his face flushed, his head ducked in embarrassment. “My first thought was that I wanted to show it to you, too.”
You couldn’t help a snicker at that, but if you teased him too much, he’d tell you to go home.
Before saying anything else, Brendan snatched a poké ball off his belt and tossed it. Swampert appeared in a flash of light, blinking sleep from its eyes as it glanced around calmly. At the sight of the ocean, its tired eyes lit up— Swampert was home.
“We gotta get a little farther out,” Brendan took strong strides towards his Pokémon and easily swung himself up onto its back. “But I promise you, this’ll be cool. So—?”
From his spot perched on Swampert’s back, Brendan shyly extended a hand out to you, still standing there with the waves crashing past and trying to drag you closer. You didn’t hesitate to take his offer, and in just a moment you’d swung yourself up on Swampert’s back as well.
Brendan didn’t turn to look at you, but his hands found yours, and he planted them firmly on his hips. “H—hold on tight, just in case.” Maybe your mind was playing tricks on you, but you were sure he’d gotten a bit warmer.
When its trainer patted it on the shoulders, Swampert took the familiar cue and began wading out into the water. It wasn’t long before the large Pokémon's feet left the vestiges of the beach, and it had to lower its head to break against the waves as it swam farther and farther from the shore.
You’d been Surfing plenty of times, of course, but with the way the inky dark of the ocean surrounded you, and the stars gleamed like mysterious gems above, your grip on Brendan tightened anyways.
At some point, careful not to disturb your hands on his hips, Brendan managed to fish his pokédex from his pocket and flip it open to the map screen. The light from the screen was a harsh shock to your night vision, and you had to blink rapidly and look away to clear the spots from your eyes.
“It should be right around here,” Brendan whispered. Swampert slowed to a halt in the middle of the ocean; when you looked back over your shoulder, Lilycove’s lights were just small specks in the distance. You were drifting alone together out here on the infinite ocean.
Brendan, his shoes tucked safely in his bag, kicked his feet out through the water as he waited for something. You watched the droplets fly through the air, sparkling before they hit the water again and vanished as individuals. Since neither of you felt like saying anything, you craned your head back to look up at the sky; the moon seemed even closer than before now, hanging over you like a guardian, and if you stretched out your wandering hands then tonight might be the night you finally grabbed it for your own.
“Over there!” Brendan hissed, breaking the comfortable quiet that had settled between you both. When he brought his hand up to point, your gaze wandered in that same direction.
A brief flash of red off in the distance. The water seemed to smother the small light, but soon enough it blinked back into existence, closer now as it drifted to and fro with the waves. Soon the blinking red light was joined by another, and another, and yet another as they all flowed closer— you leaned towards the water to get a better look, only for Brendan’s hands to tighten on your wrists and keep you in place.
“No need to go overboard,” he laughed softly, “they’ll get closer on their own if we don’t scare ‘em.”
Unable to tear your eyes away, you simply nodded in reply. As the red lights drifted near, they began breaking above the waves, flashes of brown and purple and gold surfacing out of the deep and lighting up the night with an eerie glow.
“Oh!” You breathed out— Staryu and Starmie. You’d never seen so many at once before. In the time it took you to blink, Swampert was surrounded by the other Pokémon, none of them paying any mind to you as they let the shades from their pulsing cores fill the moonlit evening. One of them even brushed up against your ankle as your legs dangled in the water; when it didn’t swim away, you stretched out one hand to run your fingertips along its soaked skin. The Staryu crooned and spun away.
Brendan smiled again at your awed face as you watched it go. “They send out signals to the stars,” he whispered, as if afraid his voice would send the sea-stars back into the depths.
With the way the Pokémon drifted back and forth, gently spurred onwards by the dark waves as they beamed their yearning messages to a far-off home, the night sky above glistening back as if it longed to receive those lives it had never met— it was like you’d been pinned between the heavens once more.
You caught Brendan’s eye once more as your gaze finally pulled away from a Starmie swimming past. The red lights from below highlighted the shape of his jaw and the soft smile on his face. “Told ya it’d be cool,” he said, and you couldn’t find your words to respond. His gray eyes wandered over your face in the moonlight for just a moment, and then his hand came up to brush your hair away from your face.
Before you could gather your voice, Brendan leaned in to press a gentle kiss to your forehead, and he vanished as quickly as he’d arrived. Even though he turned his face away, you could still see the bright blush that flared its way across his skin.
He fit right in with the Staryu.