Well, here it is. The first drabble fleshed out :D This one is 06 from the first chapter- therefore I pronounce it FRANTICSHIPPING! First time doing this- rather nervous actually. *does a tap dance of anxiety* I think Hanon Diethel (er did I spell that right?) requested this.
Disclaimer: No tengo Pokemon. Yo estoy triste. (My Spanish is sadly limited... let's hope my English is better)
06. Dark:
He holds her close as she gasps and sobs, but he can't help a surprised, soft smile as he realizes that his fearless jungle girl is actually scared of the dark.
"Would you please slow down?" Ruby glared in exasperation as Sapphire gleefully swung from tree to tree, her arms flashing in and out of the thick foliage as she skillfully navigated the forest. Honestly, Ruby muttered mentally to himself. One of these days she's going to break her legs and then what will I tell her father?
He didn't want to face the wrath of a normally placid Professor.
Sapphire threw herself from a branch and landed skillfully on the ground with a soft thump. "Get over it, Ruby," she drawled, her tooth glinting in the sunlight. "You should try it sometime. Walking is just so… mundane."
"There you go with the big words again." Ruby scowled as he continued to shoulder through the thick undergrowth. "And by the way, you'd never find me swinging from tree to tree like some wild Pokemon. I have dignity."
"You're just scared," Sapphire taunted.
"Yeah. Whatever. I'm terrified. Shaking in my shoes. Which, may I add, are now coated in mud… and I just washed them, too!" The cloud over Ruby's head darkened. "Remind me why we're in Johto traipsing through the forest?"
"Because Daddy asked me to go research a new species of Pokemon, and your dad figured you needed some fresh air." Sapphire yawned loudly as Ruby made a muttered comment about how flies would get in her mouth some day. "You're such a wet blanket, Ruby."
"At least I'm a wet blanket with dignity," Ruby said as coolly as he could. He glanced at his Poketch, a handy gift from Platina on his seventeenth birthday. (He still felt bad about giving her a woolen scarf- he should have given her silk, but how was he supposed to know she was Lady Platina?) "Well, it's almost eight. Sun will be setting soon, and we're too far out from Gold's place so now we'll have to… camp out. Told you to bring Pilo," he fired.
"Well, I'm sorry. Haven't you forgotten anything in your entire life?"
Ruby settled for ignoring her and looking for a place to spend the night. Twilight filtered through the trees, and cast a pallid glow around them. The foliage was too thick; if Ruby squinted he could just barely see the orange and pink skies engulfing the blue. He glanced at his Poketch and narrowed his eyes, estimating in his head how much time they had before they were engulfed in pitch black darkness. He had Zuzu, and Sapphire had Toro, but that was all they had, since Gold's Ataro had conveniently stolen their Pokeballs from their bags when they weren't looking.
That stupid monkey.
"Ruby," Sapphire called, and he turned to see her rapidly disappearing through a group of clustered bushes. "I think I see a cave."
He trusted her on this one; when it came to environments like these, Sapphire was the person to go to. She'd lived in forests all her life, so it made sense that no matter what region you dropped her in, she'd feel right at home among all the foliage. Ruby, on the other hand, was a city boy and he was proud of it.
Ruby emerged from the undergrowth in front of a small cave, probably the hiding place of a few Nidoran before they had gotten flushed out by some other Pokemon. "It'll do," he said, exhaustion riding every muscle of his body. "Do you have the notebooks? I'll take care of them, you go and wash up, there's a stream right there-" He didn't even finish his sentence before Sapphire disappeared, throwing the books at him and hitting him right in the head. "Or, you could ignore me, that's cool," he continued, sighing as he gathered up their notes and put them neatly in his bag.
"Zuzu," he said to his Pokemon as it appeared in a flash of light, "I know it sounds really dumb, but could you give this cave a nice spray, just to be sure?" Sure of what, Ruby didn't even know, but he was too tired to comprehend his level of thought.
Sapphire came back ten minutes later, looking drenched and completely happy but Ruby was already curled up in his corner, fast asleep under the covers of his red sleeping bag.
…
Two a.m. Ruby cracked open his eyes a little wider, wondering what had woken him up. The fire was out, but that wasn't it. He glanced at his watch- they weren't even scheduled to wake up for another five hours. Sighing, Ruby snuggled back under his covers-
-and that was when he heard a quiet sob from the opposite corner of the cave. He sat up straight. "Sapphire?" he whispered, reaching for Zuzu's Pokeball, just in case.
A sniffle, and Ruby began unzipping his sleeping bag. "Sapph?" he murmured, crawling over to his friend and reaching over to touch her shoulder. The girl twitched in her sleep, murmuring something indistinct, and Ruby shook her gently. "Sapph? Wake up. You're having a bad dream."
Her eyes fluttered open, blue eyes silver in the faint sliver of moonlight that trickled into the cave. She began to shudder violently, and Ruby immediately removed his jacket to drape around her shoulders. "Shh," he whispered, holding her tightly in his arms, "It's okay. It's okay now. What's wrong?"
"I can't stand the dark," Sapphire shivered. "It makes me think of Gastly and Gengar and Green's story about being trapped in the Dream Eater nightmare-"
Ruby sighed. I knew I should never have let Green tell ghost stories at that last get-together. "It's okay," he said gently. "There aren't any ghosts around here; you know that they're not native to this area."
Sapphire continued to cry quietly into his arms, and Ruby couldn't help but be slightly amused at how quickly she had succumbed to her childhood fear. Sapphire, the wild child, scared of something. The irony of it all.
It did prove one thing to Ruby- Sapphire was human although she protested that she wasn't scared of anything (and he suspected that she would continue to say that the next morning). Ruby appreciated her vulnerability and loved her even more for it. He pressed a comforting kiss to her forehead and eventually felt her breathing even out; smiling, he eventually fell asleep, and both stayed that way until the sun rose again.
Oy. I'm not sure how I liked the ending. Every time I had a good ending in my head it slipped away like water through fingers. GRRR BRAIN.
Ooooooh please do review :D