Spaces Between Walls - Archie/Maxie (PokeSpe)
Title: Spaces Between Walls
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2375
Pairing: Archie/Maxie
Summary: Some would say that Groudon and Kyogre changed them; perhaps they were simply revealed for what they were.
Warnings: Character death
A/N: Written for typhlogirl; edited numerous times since.
Archie had discovered early on that there was something about humans that made them easy to destroy; it wasn't a sociopathic quirk, an errant thought process, but rather something undeniable - a fact, nothing more. There were those that helped you and those that opposed; those that opposed either fell quickly or they fell slowly, but they always, always fell - people were either allies or stumbling blocks, but either way, they weren't suitable for anything, and more often than not they got blood on his shoes.
Maxie had been the only exception he had found to this single, unchanging rule, and so it followed - logically - that Maxie was not human.
It had been obvious from the beginning, the fact that Maxie wasn't human; even in college, it had been obvious, and the others had known it too - that the guy sitting in the back with the long red hair and the disarming little smirk was different, unnatural, something betrayed by the fire in his voice and the fury in his eyes. It wasn't to say that Maxie was loved, or that Maxie was even liked; he was untouchable, neither loathed or cared about, and he seemed to like it that way. He was there for some sort of business degree, though he vanished before completing the program; it was decided that this was a bit of a shame, as he'd had the mind for it, but it didn't change the way things were - he was there, and then he wasn't, and no one was surprised either way.
Business was for humans, and Maxie wasn't one of them.
It wasn't until years later that Archie realized what Maxie actually was - what both of them were, really, or at least were destined to be in the end: a force of nature, unaffected by man, shaping the world through destruction without really being part of it.
It was one of those thoughts that Archie never voiced; stupid thing, really. But somewhere in there, he had a suspicion that Maxie would laugh and then he'd agree, offering one of those smirks that made Archie question whether he should punch it off of his face or return it.
For that month, the cave was no-man's land.
"Do you ever think about it?" Maxie had asked him once from where he was lying near the adjacent wall; Archie had turned his head from where he had been idly tossing the small rocks scattered about, just quickly enough to see Maxie roll over to lie on his stomach, splaying his fingers out against the stone. "When one of us dies," he'd continued, clarifying, even though Archie had known what he meant.
"I knew what you meant," Archie said anyway, not looking away; Maxie's eyes were glittering, alive at the thought of his own possible death. It was almost poetic. "I'll drown you," he finished. "You know I'll drown you."
Maxie laughed, the sound light. "How cliché. I'd hate you."
"Good."
Maxie fell silent for a moment then, folding his arms close to his chest to cradle his head, his eyes sliding closed. "And if you actually win, you had better not miss me when I'm gone."
"As though I would waste the time?"
A few moments went to silence, broken only by the sound of rocks clattering against the floor of the cave, skipping up against the far wall and landing again with a sharp clacking sound that echoed in the dead space; when Maxie spoke again, his voice was oddly serious. "I mean it, Archie. Best that you forget me entirely than regret anything."
He supposed his stare was something Maxie sensed more than anything; a few moments later his eyes slid open again, his gaze as alive as it always was. "Because I won't do you the courtesy of missing you, you know," he said. Clarifying, because they could both tell that Archie hadn't known what he'd meant.
"I'm not like you, Maxie," Archie replied, shaking his head. "I'll keep your memory alive, just to piss you off."
And Maxie had swatted stupidly at him and they'd both laughed for a brief moment, and Archie had gone back to throwing stones. "What got you on such a morbid topic tonight?"
"Sometimes I like thinking about it," Maxie replied, the smirk audible in his tone.
"And what do you plan on doing to me, then? How do you plan to see me die?"
The silence following the question was immense.
"Maxie?"
Kyogre remained long after the orb had been forced from his body, although it wasn't the mind of the creature itself that stayed with him; it was the deep, hollowed areas of his thoughts that threatened to kill him, the places Archie knew - he knew - Kyogre should have been, slammed into his head and buried deep, like a knife to the temple.
The first few days were terrible, although all he really would remember after the fact was that they were terrible. The details faded almost as quickly as they came into being; there was no sight or sound or touch, simply the knowledge that he was surrounded by earth and there was too little light and there was some other presence in this godforsaken cavern that he should be seeking out but didn't trust himself not to kill. Sometimes he would find himself pacing when he came back, regaining awareness for a few brief moments before losing himself to the aggression again; other times he would simply be sitting with his back against the wall, staring at nothing with his legs stretched out in front of him, and he wouldn't move before falling catatonic again.
There really wasn't anything else to do at times like this, after all.
After a while, though, the lucid periods became longer, easier to sustain; the first thing he became aware of, as soon as he could really be aware of anything, was Maxie screaming.
The sound was harsh, grating as it resonated from somewhere further back in that cave, though Archie didn't get up to check on him right away. Maxie was definitely being loud about whatever was happening, but he didn't sound afraid or angry, so he wasn't in any sort of trouble; Archie couldn't exactly say that he would have cared even if he was. If there was something dangerous in this cave system, they would have awakened it days ago; if Maxie had found a way to fuck himself over, it was a result of stupidity or talent - entirely his own fault either way.
It was the way that the screams cut off abruptly that made Archie decide to find him, just to ensure that he hadn't died back there; he wasn't difficult to find. This cave system was more straightforward than the one at the bottom of the sea; hazily, he realized that he didn't remember leaving that underwater cavern. Of course, at that point, he supposed, it hardly mattered.
Maxie was sitting against the wall when he found him, legs drawn up close to his chest and his arms folded across his knees, serving as somewhere to rest his head. His posture was unnatural, crumpled, as though he had simply fallen forward and hadn't bothered to get back up; even from a distance Archie could tell that he was shaking, the violent tremors overtaking his body fully visible despite the odd positioning. He could also see that moment when Maxie suddenly tensed up, clutching himself closer before another one of those sounds was ripped from his body, sharp and pained and difficult to listen to without instilling the inexplicable urge to strike him.
Archie didn't strike him, in the end, instead pressing his hand firmly against Maxie's shoulder and shaking him roughly; he did so twice before Maxie seemed to come back around, though when his head snapped up and his eyes met Archie's for the first time in days, they still had that filmy, unfocused look to them - not all there.
Whatever look he may have had in his eyes, however, and in spite of all of the screaming and shaking and whatever was going wrong in his head...everything was completely offset by the smile - an odd grin twisting his features, splitting his face, and though he was still openly trembling, it looked more like barely-suppressed laughter than anything else.
It was off-putting; for all his smirking, Maxie rarely laughed.
"Archie..." The name came out slow and delirious, crackling violently; Maxie had obviously been abusing his voice for a while. At the same time, Archie supposed he should be pleased for small favors - at least Maxie seemed able to recognize exactly what he was seeing.
"You were screaming."
Maxie didn't answer verbally, but the shift in his expression said more than enough - he hadn't realized.
"I finally had to come see what was going on," Archie continued, his voice even. "I couldn't think with you shrieking back here."
"I can't stop it," Maxie snapped, a sharp bite behind his words despite the fact that that odd grinning expression hadn't fully left; there was a long, silent moment before he lowered his head to his arms again. "How can you stand it, it's so fucking cold..."
Archie rolled his eyes at that, his hand slipping off of Maxie's shoulder. Figuring out what the hell they were supposed to do now could wait until Maxie was more lucid; if Maxie never fully came back around again...well, he'd see what happened then. Either way, he had no intention of staying; he couldn't say he was expecting it when Maxie decided to stop him from leaving.
The gesture was abrupt, quick but firm - Maxie's hand shot out suddenly, his fingers locking tightly around Archie's wrist. Archie looked back at him, probably to say something snappish, only to find that Maxie wasn't returning eye contact; he'd lifted his head, but was staring fixedly at some vague point directly in front of him instead of looking at what he was doing. Archie glared at him; he couldn't even be sure if this was a conscious reaction or not.
And then Maxie's fingers shifted when Archie tried to pull his arm away, sharp nails burying themselves into his wrist. "Don't."
Archie stared at him for a moment; Maxie generally refused company, or he tolerated company, he never requested it...and even if it was completely ridiculous - even if there was no valid reason why - for the time being, Archie stayed.
That one moment - that awkward wrist-grab in the back of the cave, the silence that bled thick between them - was the last time that Maxie showed any real sign of vulnerability. Fortunate for both of them, really; Archie couldn't say that he would have obliged him again.
Some might have said that Groudon and Kyogre had changed them; Archie would have disagreed. Awakening Groudon and Kyogre had awakened them, revealed them for what they were - the tempest, the firestorm, the forces of nature. Both of them knew it. Neither of them cared. And they laughed as the world died.
They had always been terrible human beings, anyway.
He hadn't drowned Maxie, when all was said and done - circumstances hadn't allowed. Whatever they had done to each other wasn't anything that he would remember, either; their actions had been quick, and the pain would come later. It had, however, ended up being the way they had imagined it would be.
The two of them, alone, at the end of the world.
He didn't know how he'd gotten there but in the end he had Maxie pinned, straddling his hips with his hands at his throat, and though Maxie didn't do him the disrespect of giving up, there had come a moment when their eyes had locked.
And both of them had known.
Archie couldn't be sure how long they stayed that way; his breathing was heavy, his skin damp, and he could feel Maxie's pulse pounding beneath his hands, the blood forcing its way through his veins. And Maxie had been defiant to the end - both of them had known, and yet the crazy bastard had laughed anyway.
"Well done."
And though permission hadn't been needed, with those two words it had been granted; maybe Maxie really had liked thinking about it. Either way, he hadn't lasted long after that; a snapped neck tended to have that effect, and he hadn't broken eye contact as it had happened. His gaze had been calm for once, cold in comparison to the wild glow they'd held for the last month; he hadn't died afraid, nor had he been angry.
In that way, Archie supposed, even if Maxie had lost, he had scored his own small, stupid victory at the end.
He didn't think about him much, after it was over; his thoughts were given instead to the sea, to Kyogre and Jirachi, to what the world would be when he was done with it -
And in the months to come, he would think about him constantly, about the lack of opposition and the sheer amount of silence spanning between himself and the walls, and not being able to remember what Maxie's voice had sounded like despite having heard it so much, for so long.
Archie wasn't naive. He had understood what would happen when it was all over; judging from those two words, the deranged laughter and the cold, calm look in Maxie's eyes, maybe they both had.
It was another one of those stupid things, something he thought often but never said, and he certainly wouldn't know now; after he'd spent weeks with nothing to counter him - no opposing force of nature to deal with - he tried to stop deliberating it. There was no point in dwelling on the memories of words with no sound behind them, no point in thinking about the way Maxie's eyes had been crackling with cold fire that night in the cave so long after he had smothered the flames.
"Maxie?"
He'd prodded him again, that night they had discussed their deaths in the cave, because like hell if he was going to let Maxie get away without answering; Maxie had simply lifted his head as Archie had looked at him, a sharp, acidic sense of amusement behind his words.
"I think it would be best," he'd said, that disarming little smirk still present across his features, "not to tell you - to let you find out, in the end. But believe me, I already know exactly what I'll do to you."
And at the end of the day, Archie still didn't believe that Maxie had known.
Not really, anyway.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2375
Pairing: Archie/Maxie
Summary: Some would say that Groudon and Kyogre changed them; perhaps they were simply revealed for what they were.
Warnings: Character death
A/N: Written for typhlogirl; edited numerous times since.
Archie had discovered early on that there was something about humans that made them easy to destroy; it wasn't a sociopathic quirk, an errant thought process, but rather something undeniable - a fact, nothing more. There were those that helped you and those that opposed; those that opposed either fell quickly or they fell slowly, but they always, always fell - people were either allies or stumbling blocks, but either way, they weren't suitable for anything, and more often than not they got blood on his shoes.
Maxie had been the only exception he had found to this single, unchanging rule, and so it followed - logically - that Maxie was not human.
It had been obvious from the beginning, the fact that Maxie wasn't human; even in college, it had been obvious, and the others had known it too - that the guy sitting in the back with the long red hair and the disarming little smirk was different, unnatural, something betrayed by the fire in his voice and the fury in his eyes. It wasn't to say that Maxie was loved, or that Maxie was even liked; he was untouchable, neither loathed or cared about, and he seemed to like it that way. He was there for some sort of business degree, though he vanished before completing the program; it was decided that this was a bit of a shame, as he'd had the mind for it, but it didn't change the way things were - he was there, and then he wasn't, and no one was surprised either way.
Business was for humans, and Maxie wasn't one of them.
It wasn't until years later that Archie realized what Maxie actually was - what both of them were, really, or at least were destined to be in the end: a force of nature, unaffected by man, shaping the world through destruction without really being part of it.
It was one of those thoughts that Archie never voiced; stupid thing, really. But somewhere in there, he had a suspicion that Maxie would laugh and then he'd agree, offering one of those smirks that made Archie question whether he should punch it off of his face or return it.
For that month, the cave was no-man's land.
"Do you ever think about it?" Maxie had asked him once from where he was lying near the adjacent wall; Archie had turned his head from where he had been idly tossing the small rocks scattered about, just quickly enough to see Maxie roll over to lie on his stomach, splaying his fingers out against the stone. "When one of us dies," he'd continued, clarifying, even though Archie had known what he meant.
"I knew what you meant," Archie said anyway, not looking away; Maxie's eyes were glittering, alive at the thought of his own possible death. It was almost poetic. "I'll drown you," he finished. "You know I'll drown you."
Maxie laughed, the sound light. "How cliché. I'd hate you."
"Good."
Maxie fell silent for a moment then, folding his arms close to his chest to cradle his head, his eyes sliding closed. "And if you actually win, you had better not miss me when I'm gone."
"As though I would waste the time?"
A few moments went to silence, broken only by the sound of rocks clattering against the floor of the cave, skipping up against the far wall and landing again with a sharp clacking sound that echoed in the dead space; when Maxie spoke again, his voice was oddly serious. "I mean it, Archie. Best that you forget me entirely than regret anything."
He supposed his stare was something Maxie sensed more than anything; a few moments later his eyes slid open again, his gaze as alive as it always was. "Because I won't do you the courtesy of missing you, you know," he said. Clarifying, because they could both tell that Archie hadn't known what he'd meant.
"I'm not like you, Maxie," Archie replied, shaking his head. "I'll keep your memory alive, just to piss you off."
And Maxie had swatted stupidly at him and they'd both laughed for a brief moment, and Archie had gone back to throwing stones. "What got you on such a morbid topic tonight?"
"Sometimes I like thinking about it," Maxie replied, the smirk audible in his tone.
"And what do you plan on doing to me, then? How do you plan to see me die?"
The silence following the question was immense.
"Maxie?"
Kyogre remained long after the orb had been forced from his body, although it wasn't the mind of the creature itself that stayed with him; it was the deep, hollowed areas of his thoughts that threatened to kill him, the places Archie knew - he knew - Kyogre should have been, slammed into his head and buried deep, like a knife to the temple.
The first few days were terrible, although all he really would remember after the fact was that they were terrible. The details faded almost as quickly as they came into being; there was no sight or sound or touch, simply the knowledge that he was surrounded by earth and there was too little light and there was some other presence in this godforsaken cavern that he should be seeking out but didn't trust himself not to kill. Sometimes he would find himself pacing when he came back, regaining awareness for a few brief moments before losing himself to the aggression again; other times he would simply be sitting with his back against the wall, staring at nothing with his legs stretched out in front of him, and he wouldn't move before falling catatonic again.
There really wasn't anything else to do at times like this, after all.
After a while, though, the lucid periods became longer, easier to sustain; the first thing he became aware of, as soon as he could really be aware of anything, was Maxie screaming.
The sound was harsh, grating as it resonated from somewhere further back in that cave, though Archie didn't get up to check on him right away. Maxie was definitely being loud about whatever was happening, but he didn't sound afraid or angry, so he wasn't in any sort of trouble; Archie couldn't exactly say that he would have cared even if he was. If there was something dangerous in this cave system, they would have awakened it days ago; if Maxie had found a way to fuck himself over, it was a result of stupidity or talent - entirely his own fault either way.
It was the way that the screams cut off abruptly that made Archie decide to find him, just to ensure that he hadn't died back there; he wasn't difficult to find. This cave system was more straightforward than the one at the bottom of the sea; hazily, he realized that he didn't remember leaving that underwater cavern. Of course, at that point, he supposed, it hardly mattered.
Maxie was sitting against the wall when he found him, legs drawn up close to his chest and his arms folded across his knees, serving as somewhere to rest his head. His posture was unnatural, crumpled, as though he had simply fallen forward and hadn't bothered to get back up; even from a distance Archie could tell that he was shaking, the violent tremors overtaking his body fully visible despite the odd positioning. He could also see that moment when Maxie suddenly tensed up, clutching himself closer before another one of those sounds was ripped from his body, sharp and pained and difficult to listen to without instilling the inexplicable urge to strike him.
Archie didn't strike him, in the end, instead pressing his hand firmly against Maxie's shoulder and shaking him roughly; he did so twice before Maxie seemed to come back around, though when his head snapped up and his eyes met Archie's for the first time in days, they still had that filmy, unfocused look to them - not all there.
Whatever look he may have had in his eyes, however, and in spite of all of the screaming and shaking and whatever was going wrong in his head...everything was completely offset by the smile - an odd grin twisting his features, splitting his face, and though he was still openly trembling, it looked more like barely-suppressed laughter than anything else.
It was off-putting; for all his smirking, Maxie rarely laughed.
"Archie..." The name came out slow and delirious, crackling violently; Maxie had obviously been abusing his voice for a while. At the same time, Archie supposed he should be pleased for small favors - at least Maxie seemed able to recognize exactly what he was seeing.
"You were screaming."
Maxie didn't answer verbally, but the shift in his expression said more than enough - he hadn't realized.
"I finally had to come see what was going on," Archie continued, his voice even. "I couldn't think with you shrieking back here."
"I can't stop it," Maxie snapped, a sharp bite behind his words despite the fact that that odd grinning expression hadn't fully left; there was a long, silent moment before he lowered his head to his arms again. "How can you stand it, it's so fucking cold..."
Archie rolled his eyes at that, his hand slipping off of Maxie's shoulder. Figuring out what the hell they were supposed to do now could wait until Maxie was more lucid; if Maxie never fully came back around again...well, he'd see what happened then. Either way, he had no intention of staying; he couldn't say he was expecting it when Maxie decided to stop him from leaving.
The gesture was abrupt, quick but firm - Maxie's hand shot out suddenly, his fingers locking tightly around Archie's wrist. Archie looked back at him, probably to say something snappish, only to find that Maxie wasn't returning eye contact; he'd lifted his head, but was staring fixedly at some vague point directly in front of him instead of looking at what he was doing. Archie glared at him; he couldn't even be sure if this was a conscious reaction or not.
And then Maxie's fingers shifted when Archie tried to pull his arm away, sharp nails burying themselves into his wrist. "Don't."
Archie stared at him for a moment; Maxie generally refused company, or he tolerated company, he never requested it...and even if it was completely ridiculous - even if there was no valid reason why - for the time being, Archie stayed.
That one moment - that awkward wrist-grab in the back of the cave, the silence that bled thick between them - was the last time that Maxie showed any real sign of vulnerability. Fortunate for both of them, really; Archie couldn't say that he would have obliged him again.
Some might have said that Groudon and Kyogre had changed them; Archie would have disagreed. Awakening Groudon and Kyogre had awakened them, revealed them for what they were - the tempest, the firestorm, the forces of nature. Both of them knew it. Neither of them cared. And they laughed as the world died.
They had always been terrible human beings, anyway.
He hadn't drowned Maxie, when all was said and done - circumstances hadn't allowed. Whatever they had done to each other wasn't anything that he would remember, either; their actions had been quick, and the pain would come later. It had, however, ended up being the way they had imagined it would be.
The two of them, alone, at the end of the world.
He didn't know how he'd gotten there but in the end he had Maxie pinned, straddling his hips with his hands at his throat, and though Maxie didn't do him the disrespect of giving up, there had come a moment when their eyes had locked.
And both of them had known.
Archie couldn't be sure how long they stayed that way; his breathing was heavy, his skin damp, and he could feel Maxie's pulse pounding beneath his hands, the blood forcing its way through his veins. And Maxie had been defiant to the end - both of them had known, and yet the crazy bastard had laughed anyway.
"Well done."
And though permission hadn't been needed, with those two words it had been granted; maybe Maxie really had liked thinking about it. Either way, he hadn't lasted long after that; a snapped neck tended to have that effect, and he hadn't broken eye contact as it had happened. His gaze had been calm for once, cold in comparison to the wild glow they'd held for the last month; he hadn't died afraid, nor had he been angry.
In that way, Archie supposed, even if Maxie had lost, he had scored his own small, stupid victory at the end.
He didn't think about him much, after it was over; his thoughts were given instead to the sea, to Kyogre and Jirachi, to what the world would be when he was done with it -
And in the months to come, he would think about him constantly, about the lack of opposition and the sheer amount of silence spanning between himself and the walls, and not being able to remember what Maxie's voice had sounded like despite having heard it so much, for so long.
Archie wasn't naive. He had understood what would happen when it was all over; judging from those two words, the deranged laughter and the cold, calm look in Maxie's eyes, maybe they both had.
It was another one of those stupid things, something he thought often but never said, and he certainly wouldn't know now; after he'd spent weeks with nothing to counter him - no opposing force of nature to deal with - he tried to stop deliberating it. There was no point in dwelling on the memories of words with no sound behind them, no point in thinking about the way Maxie's eyes had been crackling with cold fire that night in the cave so long after he had smothered the flames.
"Maxie?"
He'd prodded him again, that night they had discussed their deaths in the cave, because like hell if he was going to let Maxie get away without answering; Maxie had simply lifted his head as Archie had looked at him, a sharp, acidic sense of amusement behind his words.
"I think it would be best," he'd said, that disarming little smirk still present across his features, "not to tell you - to let you find out, in the end. But believe me, I already know exactly what I'll do to you."
And at the end of the day, Archie still didn't believe that Maxie had known.
Not really, anyway.