A POKÉ FOR MY THOUGHTS

I watched you sleeping a few nights back. Creepy, I know.

I turned my head this way and that. The sunset orange spots on your back, your gently curved snout of a mouth, your sometimes-bristly-sometimes-soft coat of fur. Backwards, long ways, from the front, from the side. I looked you up and down and couldn't figure it out. Are you, a pokémon, attractive to me? Romantically speaking – a concept I'm still not sure if you understand.

The day you first found me, what did you think? I told you I was a human when all you saw was a confused little Mudkip. I stumbled about on the warm sand, struggling with the transition between two legs to four. You caught me before I could fall, nearly toppling yourself, and frowned in concern.

Once you had me righted, my four stout blue legs firmly planted, you allowed yourself a smile and told me, "I'm Percy. It's nice to meet you." I gaped at you, quite amazed to find myself understanding a Cyndanquil and once again you were frowning. I must have seemed so crazy. "Who might you be?"

That's when I told you. I think somewhere in my mind I knew of my transformation. There must have been some kind of pokémon mentality reset I had undergone because I found myself stating that "I'm a human" rather slowly and much more unsurely than I would have liked.

You said that I was "a little odd". I know I must have seemed that way.

But later you did not find me odd at all. You were so quick to trust and, strangely enough, so was I. I helped you get your treasure back on a whim, a mere gut feeling. To think it could have led to all this. Just think through it all, Percy. Every adventure, every discovery, each and every one of our interactions.

You were the one to create our exploration team, even if you later gave me the honour of naming it. Team Pyro-Blue (a silly name I thought up on the spot for our Guildmaster) began the moment you said my name. "Would you be willing to form an exploration team with me, Brooke?"

You wear your heart on your sleeve (a metaphorical sleeve Percy – you're a pokémon, I know). It amazes me to hear you say things I could only wish for a friend to tell me, especially considering that you're a male. I thought your gender was meant to spit on tender feelings or, rather, just have trouble declaring them. Are you so honest because you're a pokémon or is it just because you are you?

After a while of knowing you I could only think that you had the personality of my dream man. Someone like you would be the someone I would want to marry, to have kids with, to grow old with. The trouble was you were not a man, you were, and of course still are, a pokémon. I cannot tell you how confused that left me. I was more confused than on the day I awoke on the beach with amnesia.

I had questions I wanted to ask now; I had so much to say. But, you see, I was too afraid to say any of it. I wanted to ask about romance between pokémon, I wanted to know if a pokémon could feel the rush of physical passion humans could, I wanted to know if anything like marriage existed in this world. I wanted to know if it was wrong for me (someone who had once been human) to be thinking any of this. I still don't really know the answer to any of it, but I feel that I'm making strides at least.

It was my turn to find you on the beach this time.

I had disappeared from reality, gone in a flash of gold and you were left all alone. I was sad to go, but I was even sadder to be leaving you. We had just saved the world together and our reward was eternal separation. But, miraculously, we were taken pity upon. We were gifted a future.

I appeared on the beach, blinking in the light of the setting sun, and the first thing I saw was you. You were lying beside Bidoof, crying your eyes out, but the moment you noticed me – a small little Mudkip on unsteady legs – you came bounding over and flung yourself upon me, sending us both falling back into the sand.

"Brooke," you cried, "Brooke!"

It had been a blink of an eye for me, but for you it had been a month. A month apart, thinking I was gone forever.

"Don't you ever leave again," you told me through your tears. "You have to promise to stay forever."

"I promise," I said, blinking back my own tears, "I promise, I promise you Percy."

So now I find myself doing a full circle, once again in my straw nest, watching your creamy torso rise and fall. I think you must have felt my intense stare because you woke up and startled me by saying, "Why are you glaring at me, Brooke?"

"I-I'm not," I stuttered embarrassedly and mumbled, "I couldn't sleep..."

"Oh," you said and smiled groggily, "Well, I find that closing my eyes always helps."

I huffed at your joke but, a moment later, I laughed all the same. I continued to watch you and, this time, you watched me too. I suddenly felt bolder, more open; I felt much more like you. Rather calmly, never taking my eyes off yours, I said what I have wanted to for quite a long time. "I love you, Percy."

My belly did flips when I saw you redden. So maybe, I could continue; I could turn this into a small experiment. I approached you slowly and settled myself by your side, in your nest. I was waiting for you to push me out, asking to have your own space, but at no such protest I took a glance up at your face and saw you blushing all the more.

So, I'm thinking Percy that maybe (hopefully) pokémon can love – romantically speaking.

A/N: So, I've been thinking: Love between Pokémon. Everybody writes about it, but does anybody know if their romance would be anything like human romance because Pokémon can behave so similarly to humans. But, of course, they are all very biologically different. You see, the human race in general is a group of romantics and quite often likes to believe that love is universal. But what if it's only special to us? Of course, with this fic, here I am promoting universal love.

Well, just some food for thought.Thanks for reading!