Disclaimer: No fourth walls were (terribly) harmed during the making of this fanfiction.
"Hey." Proton didn't reply. He and Petrel had been laying around on the floor of their den for hours, now, most of that time spent talking, and he'd been happy for their quiet break, at it had been giving him a chance to rest his jaw. He would have happily replied in twenty, maybe thirty more minutes, but alas, his friend was persistent. "Hey. Hey, Pro. C'mon, man, talk to me."
"I'm listening, Petrel," Proton sighed in reply. "What, now?"
"Have you ever thought that maybe we're not real, and everything we know is a lie?"
"...The fuck?" Proton's brow furrowed, and his head flopped lazily to the side so he could get a better view of his friend, who looked serious as all hell. "What the fuck kind of question is that?" Petrel shrugged and stretched, folding his hands behind his head.
"I dunno," he said, "just... have you? I mean, what if we were actually just characters in some child's game, and pokemon don't really exist?" Proton snorted and rolled his eyes before turning onto his side and propping his head up on one hand.
"The hell kind of children's game would that be?" he asked, "Man, we steal and kill for a living, and then with what we do behind closed doors..."
"Well, we'd be the antagonists, obviously." Petrel rolled his eyes right back at him. "We'd be off-stage most of the time, they'd never see us doing anything."
"So then none of this would be happening," Proton concluded. "Because we'd exist only for the protagonist to come beat the shit out of us, and there would be no base, no character development, and no sex. We'd be two-dimensional, pixelated, mustache-twirling bad guys." Petrel hummed and was quiet again- finally, some peace. Proton smirked to himself and returned to laying flat on his back, staring absently at the ceiling.''
"Maybe we're in a fanfiction."
"Are you serious?"
"No, no, think about it- if we're not real, and we only exist as specific in-game events, then obviously right now we're just some zubat-shit crazy author's headcanon."
"You've been spending too much time reading that shit those girls keep putting on your cork boards."
"Nah, I'm serious. Wouldn't that explain so mewdamn much?"
"Like what?"
"Like how some plucky kid was able to beat us and how zany our misadventures are. I told you how I got us out of the International Police headquarters, didn't I?"
"You mean with your koffing, a jar of nutella, two hotwheels and a blowdart?"
"Actually it was three hotwheels, but don't tell Archer- two sounds way cooler." Proton considered that for a moment. Yeah, that was quite an interesting way to escape the IP, but he was convinced Petrel had made half of that story up, anyways. Nevertheless, if Petrel was telling the truth about it all, then either the purple-haired executive was right, or Lugia just loved them more than most people.
"Alright," Proton said after a moment of contemplation, "let's say we are in a fanfiction. Wouldn't the world explode, or some shit, 'cause you're breaking the fourth wall by even considering the possibility?"
"Obviously not," Petrel replied. "Considering it isn't breaking the fourth wall- breaking the fourth wall would be, like, if I all of a sudden just said 'by the way, you should really review', or some shit like that."
"Alright, I can dig that, I guess. So we're in a fanfiction. What genre are we in?" His friend frowned, stroking his goatee thoughtfully.
"Well, since nothing's really happening, I'm gonna take a stab at 'friendship'."
"Ha. Well, that's stupid. We must be in the shittiest fanfiction, ever."
"What, you don't like friendship stories?"
"Not if they're as boring as this fuckin' one is. Shit, man, let's go find some Cipher punks and turn this into an action story."
"I thought you didn't believe we were in a fanfiction, anyways."
"I don't, but you won't shut up about it. If we're going to be a fanfiction, we might as well be something hardcore." That caught Petrel's attention easily, and he rolled over, grabbing Proton's wrists and pinning them down as he kissed him.
"Alright," the taller executive purred once they parted for air, "hardcore it is."
In retrospect, as they were snuggling under the covers of their bed some time later, Proton realized that the entire conversation had probably been a set-up, just for Petrel to have an excuse to tie him up. He really needed to be careful about how he worded things in the future.