we can watch the world burn::
/let's raise our middle fingers to the sky and pretend that there's no tomorrow/
"You scared?" she teases, teetering precariously on the edge of the cliff, her hair knotted in messy pigtails and her smile wide and python-like.
He suppresses a gulp, imagining the massive, hundred-foot drop only inches away. "No."
What they're doing sounds risky- insane and foolhardy, really -but she's always been one for doing insane and foolhardy things. Like this, which is walking ten paces back, making a running jump, and then experiencing the sensation of falling as gravity drags you down without mercy, the wind whistling in your ears, and your only hope being the Braviary and Flygon hovering some small distance away catching you and flying you to safety.
"I'll go first, then."
She turns, walks, and then swivels around so abruptly it looks like her neck will snap. Her thin, tanned arms pump up and down, sweat beading on her brow as she dashes, leaps, and then... disappears.
Terrified, he plods over to the cliff and looks down, scanning the valley below for any signs of her blood-splattered, crushed, warped, deformed body, when he's suddenly shoved back by a sudden gust of wind, generated by the beating of two powerful wings. She gives a whooping war cry as her Braviary alights, does a few loops in the sky, then gently sets her back on the ground. Strands of her mocha hair (which is almost the same shade as his, but streaked with some light blonde highlights) are plastered across her face and her eyes are bloodshot, but she looks exhilarated. Grabbing him by the shoulders, she shakes him, incoherent and unable to form words, but decides on a single, profound exclamation.
"Fuck!"
She gives him a shove towards the drop, egging him on with her manic eyeballs and a palpable aura of adrenaline. "You've gotta try it!" she protests. "It's amazing! C'mon, don't be such a scaredy cat!"
A sinister grin crosses her face. "If you back out now, you'll have to buy me two sodas at the convenience store."
He sighs, drags himself over, his sneakers crunching the grit on the ground, and brushes a few flyaway brown strands out of his line of sight. Steeling himself, he does the paces, dashes like she did, and stretches out like a parachute as his body goes over.
It's fantastic, he thinks. His cheeks are flapping grotesquely and his skin is streaked with windburn, but holy shit, this really is all it's cracked up to be.
When Flygon deposits him on solid ground, she runs over and gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Pop's on me," she tells him firmly, and he gives the tiniest hint of a smile in response.
They're sitting on a rickety wooden bench where the paint is peeling off and there's a puddle next to them smelling suspiciously of urine, but he doesn't care. He's sipping cold, chilled Pepsi, and she's already made her way through three cans of Coke.
"You're gonna pee yourself," he remarks.
She wrinkles her nose. "Shut up. I'll go before we leave."
Flygon and Braviary are nestled next to them, stalwart protectors against any shady bystanders giving them curious glances. They snap ferociously at a strange, trenchcoat-wearing man whom he immediately labels as a potential sex offender, but fortunately, the man takes the hint and leaves, muttering under his breath about the "goshdurned Pokemons." On the bench, both of them have a laugh when they hear his not-too-subtle whisperings, and the man goes red and quickens his pace.
Their skin is the color of the desert sand- a light brown from lots of sun exposure. His arms feel harder, too, when he flexes them, and he thinks it might be a result of the wilderness and the way it ingrains in everyone a need for survival and an uncanny sort of strength that never quite goes away, even in the comfort of the cities. His hair is caked with desert grit, and his mouth is full of carbonated soda, but it's actually quite nice, sitting here with her.
He notices the way her pigtails fall across her shoulders, the longness of her curvaceous legs (which are put on generous display courtesty of her super-short shorts), the smattering of barely-there freckles across her nose, and the squinty-eyed look she's developed after too much time caught up in the ferocious sandstorms. She drinks from her fourth Coke can, and her lips curve around the rim like a kiss between girl and disposable metal soft-drink container.
"What?" she asks when she notices him staring. "Found something you like?"
She snickers, and he turns away, blushing, but yes, he's found something he likes. They've been doing this stunt for months, now; hitchiking with strangers in vans that smell of greasy food and condoms, eating at burger joints and throwing up in grim-encrusted bathrooms, washing up only in occasional hotels where the soap smells like honey and the beds have itchy sheets and shitty wi-fi, and calling home maybe only twice. Theirs is a wild life, the life of an adventurer, but there's something quite attractive about their bohemian lifestyle. She was the one who introduced him to the cliff-jumping and the sand-surfing and the other hot chicks at the beaches (who have been starting to pay attention to him and his well-defined abs more and more) and this weird cross-country trip of theirs which doesn't have an end in sight.
Once, she told him that she didn't care anymore. She didn't give a fuck about being the Hero who defeated Team Plasma, she didn't give a Raticate's ass about the League and Alder, and she didn't want to be Champion, which, at the time, he thought was absolutely ludicrous.
But now, he wonders. There's more than what the League promises, after all, and the whole cycle of competitive battling has frankly become boring to him. He doesn't want to be limited by the confines of his galaxy. He wants to venture to other worlds, to other planet, to alternate realities, and she's the spaceship who takes him there and nurtures him and guides him.
Once, she told him that the world could be burning and she would be lying in bed, surfing the internet for hot guys, checking up on the latest episodes of "Gossip Girl," and eating a Twinkie.
"Fuck them," she says. "Hilb, let's raise our middle fingers to everyone we meet and just not give a fuck."
Her words are coarse, but her smile is magnetizing, and he finds himself going along with more of what she tells him.
They crumple up their cans and toss them on the ground, and then they get onto their rides and fly away into the sunset.
He notices that she has a contorted, constipated expression about her, and nonchalantly, he asks, "Gotta go?"
"Fuck you," she spits, and then she laughs and so does he, and they're flying above everything and giving the world a big 'fuck-you' from outer space.