Another chapter~! I promise to do romance eventually!

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

Chapter 8

They finally broke apart for air, flushed with hormones. Red colored to match his name, but he could not deny that he had enjoyed it. Lance looked more composed, though his hair was mussed adorably.

Red was not quite sure what to say. “Um...”

“Did you not want me to do that?”

That was an odd question. Red swallowed. “I don’t know.” He finally managed. “It felt nice.”

“Would you like me to do it again?”

Lance’s voice sent little shivers down his spine and he nodded mutely as Lance pressed him down onto the sofa and kissed him again.

So warm…

He was only halfway conscious when he felt something odd. It felt wet and shiny, like pokemon scales. That was odd.

“Lance?”

“Mmhmm?”

Red swallowed, since Lance was busy kissing his neck. “Ah… your cape…”

“Oh…” He’d almost forgotten about that. With a shrug, he dropped the illusion. Red’s eyes early bugged out of his head.

“Woah!”

They were pretty, thin and pale blue veined with silver, but he could turn them into hard-edged scales and slice through steel if he had to.

“Are those fins?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a pokemon?”

“Not quite.”

“Oh.” Red thought for a moment, before shrugging. “So that’s why you like water so much. You’re a water type!”

“Yes, that’s close enough…”

He grinned. “Well, I don’t care. But I’ll try to remember it in the future.”

That was surprising. He’d expected rejection, but Red was obviously very willing to go with the flow. It was a good trait.

He grinned in spite of himself, and silenced the boy with another kiss. One thing led to another, and by the time they finished, Red was quite beyond caring just what Lance really was.

He covered the sleeping teen with a blanket and grinned to himself.

Gyarados gave him a predatory grin. You seem quite satisfied.

“He’s such an adorable child…”

I agree. And he didn’t choose to exploit your weakness.

“I don’t think he’s that type of trainer.”

You do have quite a lot of experience. Still, things will become more difficult. The water lines are still broken after all.

“Well, we can get along without them. Lugia knows that!” Lance paused, before a pained expression settled on his face. Lugia was dead. The sea guardian had died, shot by all of Team Rocket’s remaining combat forces, in hope to prevent the so called ‘destruction of the world’ that the pokemon was capable of bringing.

It was quite sad, really.

Well, at least the whole of Team Rocket had gotten destroyed in the attempt, some dragon chain reaction he didn’t quite understand. It did not matter.

Lance watched Red sleep and then went outside again. He brought back a few hundred gallons of seawater by Dragonair transport. A lot of it was stored in Red’s cellar (his house must be old or eccentric, to have one, but it was turning out to be pretty handy, it seemed sometimes old ways were better), and the rest was put by the windows and covered with structures of clear film. That way, the water would evaporate and re-condense on the film, drip down, and get collected. Red couldn’t drink seawater after all.

But it was all right. They could adapt.

And Red did learn, as time passed. After all, they lived together, ate together, trained together, and even slept together. He learned how to get by without the use of his pokedex, learned how to take in pokémon when they found some with rational thought left, learned to heal….

And that was how they lived.

They never did find out those little nagging questions, and they never found out they were legendary children, but they had completed their mission, and it did not matter anymore.

The world was in ruins, but it would rebuild.

Their lives were not. This time.

END FIC

Completed 2/27/06

See? I can write happy endings!

Lance: ^^
Red: ^^