life and death

[trainerlyra]

title: life and death
date written: nov 16th, 2015
ship: alain/mairin (pokeani)
notes: this is part of a series of shortish oneshots that mostly go in place somewhere after TSME and during XY&Z. it was written while everything was airing of course. the series mostly revolves around alan & serena ending up traveling together for a short time. their relationship is a large part of the series, but the endgame ships are marisson, poke, and geekchic. i'll slowly post these in order and fix them up once they're all posted, and eventually i'll port them all to ao3 (and link that here, too).

other notes: these oneshots were also all based on prompts to tell the story. this prompt was "you ruined everything".

Alain hadn’t known Mairin for as long as he’d known, say, Professor Sycamore or his Charizard, but he had known her for quite awhile now. The two of them had been best friends for a long time. In the time that he had known her, Alain had found himself falling in love with her; a concept he’d never thought he’d experience.

Somewhere along the line, he had begun to care more deeply about her than just about anyone else in his life. Something about her, whether it was her optimism, how she thought, or just her as a person, had captivated Alain. He had quickly found himself wanting to protect her - from everything from wild Pokemon to himself.

Yes, Alain recognized what he had to do. He had to protect this girl - this precious, small person - from himself.

In the time that he had known Mairin, he had seen her cry, scream, be frightened, aggravated, and so many other different emotions. He had seen her happy, joking around, enjoying herself to the fullest.

In all the time that Alain had known her, he had never known her like this.

..

Alain was frozen, blue eyes wide, flickering between the comatose Chespie and Mairin, who had become a ghost of her former self. To Alain, it felt like this was the first time in months that he’d laid eyes upon her. He’d been so busy trying to collect the energy for her… He shook his head. It hadn’t really been months. He would never let that happen.

Maybe things could never go back to how they once were, but Alain would do everything in his power to make Mairing smile again. He had promised her, and he had promised himself. That was why he was gone so much, instead of being at her side.

At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.

Looking at her now, though, in this state… Alain reconsidered whether or not he could even do that. There was a long silence that he couldn’t force himself to break. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

Mairin narrowed her eyes at him, but she just looked tired. Alain’s adam’s apple bobbed painfully as he swallowed.

"Why are you here?" She whispered, her words bitter and angry.

Alain looked down, ashamed. “Why not?” So badly, he wanted to be honest with her: Because I love you. Because I care about you. Because you’re my best friend. His throat felt dry as he swallowed again.

Mairin looked away from him, eyes softening once they reacher her Pokemon. Watching her in fascination, Alain forced himself to blink. It was like he had forgotten how to do anything in her presence; in the presence of the not-Mairin Mairin. The Mairin that he had created, he reminded himself in resentment.

"Get out," she said quietly.

Alain’s eyes snapped to hers. “What?” Morphing his hands into tight fists, he dug his nails deep into his skin. What?

"Get out. I don't want to see you." Her words cut like a knife.

It was almost impossible to process the idea. She was his best friend, and Alain had thought he was hers. He was also her mentor, her helper, her… Alain swallowed painfully again. He loved her. He did. He couldn’t understand this at all; didn’t she understand that he just wanted to protect her? How was he supposed to protect her if he couldn’t get any stronger?

“I said get out!” Mairin screamed, her voice reverberating off the walls of the makeshift hospital room. “You ruined everything! I never want to see you again. I hate you!” She stood up as she yelled, slamming her hands down on the end table next to Chespie. Tears welled in her eyes, but she angrily swiped the back of her hand against them.

It was like something broke inside of her as soon as she felt the tears. She covered her mouth with her hand, looking down at Chespie horrified and ashamed. Alain was frozen at the sight.

“Just leave me alone. Please. I don’t want to see you,” Mairin said after a few moments of agonizing silence. She slumped back down into her chair, dry heaving as quietly as she could make herself.

She doesn’t want to cry in front of me, Alain realized. He was horrified. Backing slowly out of the room, he whispered “I’m sorry”, over and over again. He knew his words were lost to the sound of the EKG machine, but he couldn’t make his voice go any louder. “I’m sorry.”

He repeated himself until he had made it down the hallway, shock beginning to vanish. Mairin had said that she hated him. Hated him.

Alain was in love with her, and she hated him. And he knew it was all his fault. There was nothing he could do to fix this, right now. He doubted even fixing Chespie would fix this -- he had hurt her so badly.

How could I have been so stupid? He asked himself, walking numbly through Lysandre’s building. Of course he understood why she felt that way. He had pushed her aside, and when she came to find him after everything that had happened…

He had blown up at her, claiming that she would never understand. And then, after all of that, her beloved partner Pokemon fell into an unexplained coma. How could she not hate him?

Shuddering, Alain kept walking. He would fix this. He had to.