N/A: Short fic I wrote about May and Drew. After the Advanced series. Angst. Thank you for reading and if there's something you think I should work with please tell me :) I don't own Pokémon. If I did there should be so many couples.

She Cries

because of him

(May/Drew)

Post-Advanced

~oOoOo~

Since when will he understand that he means more for her than he wants to admit? He doesn't know. He doesn't remember. He only learn, only sees, drinks in her words and pleading eyes and starts to realize that there's no point denying the truth when she serves the reality on plate for him to receive. He doesn't want and he doesn't need but he has too. Ash can never become the one for her that he is. Not that he really wants it to be faced that way – he wants to feel that he's the one for her – but maybe it would have ease his guilt and his responsibility to keep her up when she falls. Just maybe.

He spins around the straw in the drink, trying to think, trying to realize but the only things he knows that whatever he does is wrong. He does wrong. He hurts her. He deceives her. Delivers her promises that he can never keep. It's hidden deep inside him and he can't force it through his thick skin and try to scale the border that's guarded by barbed wire. He's afraid of testing new things, testing to be free and only be for her, it has always been the contests. It's the contests that make him move, make him evolve, make him believe.

He's a guy that likes to crawl himself down in the sensible. That he knows. He doesn't want to take risks, because it can make him fall and fumble in the land he doesn't recognize. He's a coward and he's fully aware of it. He's a coward that makes her cry instead of cutting her hopes and make her understand that he's not capable of being the one she thinks he is.

The drink tastes like cement and he wrinkles his lips into a displeased grimace, shoving the glass away, noticing the whopping surface. Why do some things have to be so complicated? Why can't you make friends and believe that they're going to be there forever? They won't. One mistake and you may never see them again. And some people are more than friends but they slip away anyway and all that's left is a bibulous hole that contains nothing. He cares for her. Of course he cares for her. But there are times when caring is not enough. You have to accomplish more. And he can't. He can't.

It sounds so easy. To tell her those three words that would create an eternal smile, head in clouds and veracity's fairytales come down to greet you. But it isn't easy. Because he wants to mean it. He wants to form those syllables and makes them sound real. But they don't. They don't.

He just can't.

"Don't I mean anything for you?" she asks and covers her gorgeous face behind a curtain of brown bangs, her blue eyes fixed on the glass table, fingers around her glass containing coca-cola (she's still young and reasonable.) It isn't the first time she brings the question up and most certainly not the last one.

It carves through his veins and fills them with toxic.

It's easy to tell her that he loves her. It's hard to tell her that he means it.

Because he (does) doesn't.

"Of course you do," he neatly avoids the question, clenching on the cold glass, forcing his throat to suck in more liquid to have something to do, to spill time. She will not accept his answer and he understands why. It's not because of her, it's because of him.

It makes him fall to the fantasy world no one else knows besides of him. He wants to get out. He knows he can't.

He can tease but he cannot reason. He can joke but he cannot give compliments. He can criticize but he cannot be honest.

"I don't believe you," she sharply replies and brings his nightmares to life, gives them spears and lets them torture his empty, black soul. She's right to not believe him. But he can never say that to her. Never. "You never compliment me, you never want to be with me when it's not about contests, you never tell me that I have improved. I want to hear that. I need to hear that."

Of course she does. She's a person. A human being. They need love. They need contact. They need everything he can't seem to give them.

He thought admitting was easy. But it isn't. Not if you want it to stay, not drown in the sea of black lies.

"May," he snaps and flicks his hair, a manner that always (with no exception) irritates her. "We have had this discussion before."

"But you never listen," she murmurs and sips on her coca-cola, pale fingers shivering, eyes swinging. "You just say I exaggerate but I don't think I do. You're my friend but a friend doesn't treat me like you do."

A friend. The title stings – boiling like lava and burns his pit to submission – because he can never live up to her dreams, her ideals. She wants him to be her friend but is he really? What is he? A rival? Companion?

A stranger?

She's a stranger to him.

He shuffles down the chair, nails playing on the glass, one hand adjusting the collar to the extremely uncomfortable shirt he only wears to be polite to her. "What if I'm not your friend?" he continues, grimacing, hoping that she will treat his comment like it is and not turn it to something else.

She does. Her lips wobble. Her eyes watering. He flinches.

"Why don't you want me to be your friend? What am I doing wrong? What do you want to change?" Her voice is just a faint whisper, easily drowned in the noise of the background music in the pub. He doesn't meet her gaze, because in all honestly, how can he? How can he look in those eyes and see the pain he (unwillingly) creates, the truths that turn to lies, everything that she dreams rotten and fall to the ground like a rock? Really, how can he?

He doesn't know.

"You're fine as you are," he murmurs, stuck in the denial, with nothing of his usual confidence and her bloodshot eyes and trembling fists resting on the table tell him that she will never accept his weak excuses.

He only wants to go home now.

"You always say that," she blurts out and wipes away some blank tears under her eyes. "But it isn't true. I know it isn't true. You're my friend. And a friend doesn't only think about interests. I know both you and I love contests but that's not the only thing we are."

"I care about you," he snaps, a blank and aggressive true but she will face it as a lie (because the way he treats her.)

"You don't," she sniffles with her voice dim and thick of mucus. He receives goosebumbs on his tanned skin, hole in chest increasing size, without rue. "You're stubborn and simply don't care. You comment and you criticize and that's not caring. You give me roses and say that there are for Beautifly. I know Beautifly is wonderful and deserves everything but you're my friend and should care about me."

Before he thought that everything was okay. That day by the beach – with the tanned descending sun and sand through toes – when it was goodbye, but as the same time a beginning. He though it was easy. He thought that it would remain the same.

It didn't. She's a girl and he's a boy and it creates a thick hole that drags them in a never-ending carousel, a festering tensing that complicates everything. Everything. He's afraid. He doesn't know. He can't love her. He can't love anyone. But he can't say that. She would fetch his words and turn them to lies. Because that's how she is.

"May, please don't bring that up again," he signs because he's sick of this. He's sick of the fact that the movie-tap is repeating itself, the same beginning and the same ending, the ending that only crashes heart and makes fragments fall. "You don't need me to tell that you're talented. You know that yourself. You have participated in the Grand Festival, you're famous in all Hoenn and I'm not. You know what you can, you know what you're capable of. You don't need me to tell you that."

It doesn't work to tell her the truth. Because she doesn't trust him. And he can't blame her. The canals run down her eyes, following the shape of her cheeks and she doesn't even seem aware of that she's embarrassing herself in public. In the dim cloud of alcohol and sweat she sits there in front of him with her eyes like bottomless holes, tears dripping her face, on her cleavage.

Sometimes he wishes he was more like Ash. Ash that can care, that wants to care and knows what's best for her.

Drew doesn't.

"That's not the point, Drew," she cries and doesn't even sound angry anymore. She's just stuck in the mud, crawling, reaching for dreams that don't exist. She looks so pathetic it makes his heart succumb to a dry raisin. "I need to hear that you think I'm talented. I need to hear that!"

"Alright, you're talented," he replies too quickly and nonchalantly, she rises up from her chair, eyes locked with his. He wants to fall through the ground and never come back.

"I don't want to see you ever again, Drew!" she screams and drags the attention towards her, a fact that awakens apples on her cheek. She grabs her pink coat and wires it around her body, tilting the glass with soda in the moment, the liquid swimming to the edge.

He knows he should stop her. He knows that this is his fault. But he doesn't do anything.

Only lets her cry. Only lets the tears come. Lets her run away.

She means everything to him. But that's not the same.

It's not the same.

~oOoOo~

Conjunction masses the two bridges together and so he realizes that he is bonded to her the same. No matter if she loves and he does not she is still important. She is still essential. She is still everything.

She stands outside the bar leaning at the wall, one hand in her coat, the other fumbling with the cigarette that later dangles between her lips. He didn't know that she smokes but then again: what does he know about her? Sometimes it's hard to remember that she's only fourteen and still young and wants to scale the borders. When she's on the arena, fully confident and dancing over the field with bare feet she seems so much older, so much like the girl that doesn't care about his opinions. But when it returns to this – Drew and May – everything seems to fall off her and leave her naked and vulnerable. She's not the same. She's not the one he wants.

He attends to her stance – with his stomach spinning – and tries to catch her gaze but she's stubbornly staring at the asphalt with sticky leaves and glowing puddles, pushing him out. He can't blame her. But also this can't remain. Something has to change. Something.

"That's not good for you," he stats matter-of-factly and nods at the cancer stick. She curls her lips into a soft scowl – that only enhance her weakness – and points her finger at him.

"You don't have to tell me what's good for me," she stiffly replies and takes another puff.

She wants to act old. But she's young. She's so young. She's too young to be like this.

"Listen, May," he starts, flicking his fringe again to win time. "This can't remain. Something has to change."

"You need to stop treating me like garbage," she growls and ashes her cigarette on the heel.

"That's not the point. You need to start listen to me."

She clips her eyes. "Do you blame me for this?"

He signs and kicks the wall, small particles are sent flying. "This is who I am. I'm not the greatest of friends and I can't give you the praise you want. But I can't change myself. This is me. This is what I am."

She twists one brown strand of hair around her finger, swallowing, the lump moving down her throat. "You really don't understand anything, do you?"

He raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"You're avoiding the truth." She forms her lips to a thin line. "You know what I feel for you. And it's okay if you reject me. But you don't. You let my hopes and rise, only to pop the balloon with a needle. I'm not clever but I know that much."

He inches his elbow, confused. She's right. She's so right and he feels ashamed, like he's drowning in three inches of waters. He is. He turns away. He can't take this. He can't take this May (that is so much better than he can ever wish to become.) She grabs his hands from behind and prevents further movement. "You act. But you don't have to act. You can just be the one you are."

"I'm trying," he growls, struggling to escape from her solid grip. "But it only makes you cry."

"No," she quickly smashes back; he feels her wet face nudging his back, he feels his legs wobbling like overboiled pasta. "But I can never be sure that you will not go away and leave me alone."

"That's for the best."

The fabric of his white shirt grows wet. He grimaces, almost feel like crying as well. He can't take this anymore.

"I love you, Drew," she whispers and surrounds his heart with cold ice. "I only want to be with you."

"You love me and I hurt you," he comments, bending up her fingers and turns around to face her. Her under-lip is wobbling.

Please stop doing this to me.

"I'm sorry I'm so sensitive," she takes the blame that's aimed for him and something is set on fire inside him. He hates people that drown in their own guilt and May Maple is no exception to this.

"Don't apologize."

"But what can I do?" Her voice is pleading, like everything is put on the stake and to his desolation he has no answers.

"Do you want me to be honest?"

She nods with her teeth nudging the dry lip. She lies. She doesn't want. But she has to know. There's no point denying this anymore. She has to.

"Nothing will change. I know you don't believe me but that's the truth and you have to deal with it. I can't change. I will still hurt you. But I can't see that I hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. I can't have this anymore." He pulls his hands in his pockets, lips firmly shut, nothing else added. This is everything. This is enough.

"But I-"

"I can't say I love you. But if I reject you will cry. Don't say something else because I can't stand lies."

She touches the edge of the pink coat, feet stamping, his words sinking in. "I thought everything would be perfect," she whispers and stares at the sky, with the pale moon reflecting in her blue eyes. "But I was wrong."

"Yes, you were," he murmurs softly, looking at her profile. "But I was too. I'm sorry."

She smiles and takes a step forward, spinning around, slowly realizing that she can't swallow glass anymore. It makes her throat bleed. "It will never be us, will it?"

"I don't know."

"That means no," she snaps and her eyelid become wet again. "That means no and nothing else."

"May," he says desperately and crosses his arms over his chest. "I don't want you to go."

"Neither do I. But I can't wait forever. And your time is up. I'm sorry Drew."

In the movies the good-byes seem so exaggerated with tears gracefully pouring down faces and music turning (dov) and dark. This is nothing like that.

It's worse.

She breaks the eye-contact and leaves. It's like she was never there.

But still. She does right. Somewhere, deep inside his broken mind, he realizes that this is what she has to do. She has to move on.

He makes her cry. He makes himself cry.

It will never ever work.

~oOoOo~

fin